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WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN ? ” SAID MA1D1E, (PAGE 22.) 
















Maidie’s Problem 


AND 

One of Themselves 


TWO STORIES 

BY 

y 

MARGARET E. SANGSTER 



NEW YORK: HUNT & EA TON 
Cl NCI NN A TI: CRANSTON & STOWE 














Copyright, 1890, by 

HUNT & EATON, 

New York. 


V 




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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. page 

Mother’s Right Hand 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Do What You Can 16 

CHAPTER III. 

Teddy L. Saunders and Tommy Fletcher 25 

CHAPTER IV. 

Changes 35 

CHAPTER V. 

A League for Good . . 45 

CHAPTER VI. 

Rufus 56 

• 

CHAPTER VII. 

Links in a Chain 67 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Girls’ Club 74 

CHAPTER IX. 

Greater and Less 80 

CHAPTER X. 

After Many Days 86 


















































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MAIDIE’S PROBLEM. 


CHAPTER I. 


Mother’s Right Hand. 

P and down green rounding hills and ferny dales 



v-' a rumbling old-fashioned stage carried its three 
passengers one golden day a dozen years ago, when the 
wheat harvest was ripe, and far as the eye could see the 
beautiful Virginia fields were waving with yellow grain. 
How beautiful it was in the sunshine of June — a land .that 
the Lord had blessed ! Here and there, at a bend in the 
road, were glimpses of the winding river — a ribbon of 
gleaming silver; and hidden among the trees, or perched 
midway on the mountain-sides were cottages and man- 
sions where happy, busy people lived, and where children 
grew up rosy and strong, being fed on simple food, and 
rioting like the plants in the fresh air and fyee outdoor 


life. 


Of the three people in the stage, two were evidently 
strangers to the section of the country, and the other 


8 


MAI DIE'S PROBLEM. 


scanned the landscape with the look of recognition which 
implies a renewal of acquaintance with scenes long ago 
familiar. The driver, a big-boned, grave-eyed man of 
few words, beyond an occasional chirrup to the team 
said nothing, and answered the questions of the travelers 
in monosyllables. He possessed the dignity and the 
reticence of the born mountaineer, and the talk which 
went on behind him moved him not at all, until a remark 
from the man who knew the neighborhood, and was 
coming home to it, aroused him to reply a little more at 
length. 

“ Parson Whitcomb is dead, I suppose? ” 

“ Dead this ten years,” said the driver. 

“ And what became of his family ? ” 

“ The wife followed him to the grave-yard in six months, 
and his daughter Ellen lives just around the bend in 
that red-brick house you see peeping up through the 
wheat there, in among the maples. Ellen married Si 
Fletcher, and they’ve a proper nice set of children. 
Maidie Fletcher’s the prettiest girl in these parts ; and 
the best. A favorite.” And the driver relapsed into 
silence. 

“ Maidie Fletcher? ” said one of the other passengers. 
“ What a pretty name ! She should be a good Meth- 
odist.” 


MOTHER'S RIGHT HAND. 


9 


“ Now, my dear,” said the gentleman to whom she 
spoke, “ don’t begin to speculate so soon about the in- 
habitants of this out-of-the-world spot. I’ve brought you 
here precisely because I want you to get rested, and I 
don’t want you to take an interest in any body or any 
thing. I can’t have you wasting your strength, until 
you have laid in a splendid supply of it.” 

The lady smiled, but her fingers stole upward to the 
little silver cross at her throat, and she whispered some- 
thing that sounded like, “ In His name.” Her husband 
answered her smile ; he too felt the spell, and owned the 
service implied by the dear talismanic letters. 

Meanwhile up hill and down dale the coach lumbered 
along, till, around a curve, the driver suddenly reined in 
his horses, and pointing with his whip, said : 

“ There it is ! Paradise Knoll. And a sightly spot, too. 
There isn’t a prettier place in old Virginia ! ” 

“ And there,” said the home-returning pilgrim, “ is Si 
Fletcher's inn, and to that we are all bound.” 

It was hardly an inn, if judged by the usual meaning 
of the word; for the house was only a good-sized ordi- 
nary farm-house, with thrifty looking barns and outbuild- 
ings, old trees standing about the door, grass creeping 
to the very edge of the sill, and flowers blooming in pro- 
fusion every-where. Mr. Fletcher, a portly, pleasant- 


10 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM . 


looking man of middle age, came out to receive and greet 
his guests, and just in the door-way stood his wife, a tall 
slender, sallow woman, in a delicate lilac print gown, 
which hung in straight, severe folds to her feet ; a woman 
who impressed you at first sight as clean all through, 
spotless and saintly, and so gentle that you wondered 
how she ever controlled the family of rollicking children 
who called her mother. By and by you discovered 
that it was just because she was so gentle, so tranquil, so 
self-ruled, that she was able to r strain and direct others. 
Is not this always the secret of home government, espe- 
cially when joined to “a heart at leisure from itself?” 

“ Mother is the pivot of the machinery,” Si Fletcher 
would say, looking with pride on his quiet wife. And 
indeed she was the mainspring of every thing, as a good 
mother must always be. 

Maidie was a darling. She resembled both her par- 
ents; was impulsive and cordial of manner like her 
father, and yet had her mother’s low voice, quiet move- 
ments, and soft brown eyes and hair. The lovely com- 
plexion, all rose tints and cream, spoke of perfect health 
and a happy heart, and the sun-bonnet which was always 
at hand to shield the girl’s face from wind and sun had 
protected the skin so well that Maidie’s face had the 
fine grain of a baby’s. 


MOTHER'S RIGHT HAND. 


ii 


Maidie was sixteen, well grown and strong. She could 
walk five miles to take a lesson on the old piano which 
had been part of her mother’s outfit when she came from 
her father’s house ; she could sit in the saddle all day 
without fatigue ; and to the younger ones she was a real 
elder sister — and few relationships are sweeter. From 
her grandfather, the circuit-rider, came studious tastes 
and a thoughtful turn of mind, and Maidie’s dearest 
possessions were the books which had been read over 
and over by a dear olF ,saint of a grandfather now in 
heaven. 

It was this bright-eyed girl, a creature full of life and 
full of wants, whose office it was to show Mrs. Gray to 
the neat room which had been prepared for her occupa- 
tion. Maidie did not know it, but Mrs. Gray had come 
to her as a King’s messenger, just when her life was re- 
ceptive, and when she needed most to be helped by a 
woman who, from a higher level, could reach down 
to her a friendly hand. Maidie had longed for a glimpse 
of the wide world beyond the mountains. Mrs. Gray 
was to give it to her. 

“ And you, dear, are a King’s Daughter ! ” said the 
lady, as Maidie threw wide the shutters, letting the rosy 
evening light stream in upon the bare pine floor, scrubbed 
to snowy whiteness, upon the bed with its inviting spread 


12 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


and puffy pillows, and the old-fashioned dressing-case, 
on which stood a ginger jar filled with pink roses, and 
great clusters of geraniums. 

Maidie’s face brightened. “ Yes ; mamma was willing, 
so I wrote to New York for the badge, and it has been 
a help already over some hard places ; but I’ve been the 
only one to wear it here, though there are real King’s 
Daughters in Paradise Knoll. My mother is one,” said 
the girl reverently. 

“ I can believe that,” Mrs. Gray replied. “Well, per- 
haps we may help each other, little sister. I am so glad 
we both wear the symbol.” 

“ Only a sentiment,” do I hear some reader murmur 
under her breath? Yes, only a sentiment. But, then, 
sentiment of the right kind is the strongest thing on this 
earth, and when sentiment is consecrated it takes on 
something of heaven’s strength in addition. We shall 
see before we finish our story what the wearing of the 
tiny silver cross did to bless the dwellers in the remote 
Virginia village. 

A day or two later, when Mrs. Gray had unpacked her 
books, and had given to her room those indescribable 
touches which a gentle woman always bestow's on the 
place in which she lives, whether it be for a day, a month, 
or a year, Maidie brought to her a message. The little 


MOTHER'S RIGHT HAND. 


13 


easel which had come out of that wonderful trunk of 
Mrs. Gray’s held a lovely Madonna, on the table were 
books, on the walls were several beautiful etchings. The 
girl’s eyes dwelt wistfully on the books, but, with innate 
good breeding, she made no remark. 

“ Maidie,” said Mrs. Gray, “ I wish you to have the 
freedom of my books. If there is any thing here that 
you have not read you are more than welcome to it, and 
you may carry it off to your own particular haunt and 
keep it as long as you choose.” 

“ How good you are ! ” said Maidie, picking up Miss 
Yonge’s Magnum Bonum. “ Here is a book I've wanted 
to read O, for years ! ” Her very fingers thrilled with 
delighted anticipation. 

“ I’m so glad you have chosen that*. And when you’ve 
read it we'll talk it over together. That is one of the 
best pleasures of book lovers, the talking over a book 
and comparing impressions. But, my dear child, when 
do you get time to read ? You seem to me always busy 
about the house.” 

“ There is plenty to do,” said Maidie laughing. “ Bis- 
cuits and bread to make, butter to churn, sewing, cook- 
ing, mending, washing, ironing, for this great family, and 
only old Aunt Phyllis to help, and she is not strong. 
Neither is mother. So you see I must do my share. But 


r4 


MAIDIE S PROBLEM. 


I read early in the morning, and late at night, and be- 
tween times all day long. It’s amazing how much may 
be managed in between times, Mrs. Gray.” 

“You dear child! It does not seem right for us to 
have come here, and added to your cares and work.” 

“ Don’t. look at it in that way,” said Maidie. “ The 
money you pay will give us no end of things which we 
could not possibly have had without it, and then you 
and Mr. Gray have made us feel already as if the world 
were stirred into our cup.” 

Maidie had a picturesque way of speaking of which 
she was wholly unaware. 

“ Mr. Hildreth,” she went on, “ is an old friend of 
mother’s. He has been away from Paradise for many 
years. We are glad he has come back, and glad he is 
here. In fact, we have very happy hearts here now, 
though we do have tired hands now and then.” 

“Maidie!” called Mrs. Fletcher. “The butter is 
waiting to be brought, dear, and your father says there 
is a button off the neck-band of his shirt, and the baby 
is very fretty, and Aunt Phyllis has one' of her spells.” 

“Coming, mother! ’’said the cheery young voice, as 
Maidie ran first to her own room, to deposit Magnum 
Botium on the window seat. 

Mr. Gray came in from a tramp in the woods, and 


MOTHER'S RIGHT HA HE. 


15 


met Maidie in the passage. Little Ned was tugging at 
her gown, she had the year-old baby in her arms, her 
father, with a rueful face, was holding out the shirt 
which needed the button, her mother, pale and weary, 
but tranquil as ever, was hearing her second daughter 
Ellen, repeat her lesson in the fifteenth chapter of Prov- 
erbs, and shaking her head at another small trans- 
gressor whose lesson had been neglected. The mother’s 
chamber, opening off the wide entry, was the rallying 
ground of the great family, and the gentleman, as he 
often passed its open door, could not help seeing how 
busy and faithful the dear worn mother was. When he 
reached his wife’s room, he threw himself down, saying : 

“ Love, that girl Maidie is her mother’s right hand ! ” 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 


16 


CHAPTER II. 

Do What You Can. 

«V7ES, Mrs. Gray, I wish I could do more to show 
-L my love to the dear Master, but what is there 
that I can do ? except to help along at home. There 
does not seem to be one single thing which a King’s 
Daughter can attempt here at Paradise Knoll.” 

“ Paradise Knoll ! What a perfectly charming name ! 
It ought to be a heavenly place, Maidie, but my husband, 
who goes about so much more than I do, tells me that 
there is a great deal of ignorance here, and that he never 
saw a better field for home missions in his life.” 

“ Our people are so poor, Mrs. Gray. And the boys 
and girls have fallen out of the habit of going to Sun- 
day-school because they have to go so far, and some of 
them have no shoes ; and they are growing up with no 
religion. Mother teaches us, and her family is brought 
up on the Bible. The children all enjoy studying it ex- 
cept Tommy, and he is so naughty that he never studies 
his text unless he is very hungry.” 

“ What do you mean, Maidie ? ” 

“ Why, Mrs. Gray, the other boys make fun of Tommy 


DO WHAT YOU CAN. 


17 


because he is obliged to commit the Bible to memory, 
and they declare they wouldn’t learn it for any body. So 
the poor boy is rebellious, and now he wont study unless 
he’s compelled to do so by a punishment. So father 
took him in hand, and he never can have his dinner, or 
any thing except dry bread and cold water, till he’s said 
his chapter perfectly. And sometimes Tommy is very 
stubborn ! ” 

“Poor boy indeed ! I’m afraid he will never love his 
Bible if he is made to associate it with pains and penal- 
ties. Maidie, why could not you organize those compan- 
ions of his into a Sunday-school ? ” 

“ Mrs. Gray ! ” 

“ Yes, my dear ; they would come if you should ask 
them.” 

“You don’t know them! The boys of Paradise are 
famous for badness ! They would scorn the very idea ! ” 

“ I think,” said Mrs. Gray, musingly, “ that I heard 
Maidie Fletcher wish that as, a King’s Daughter, there 
were something beyond her own home that she could do 
for her Master. I believe that the home life comes first 
in order, but all good work for Christ must branch out. 
Now, you have a motive in Tommy’s case, for you see 
the little man is affected by the public opinion of the 
boys with whom he plays, and he has fallen into the way 


i8 


MAID IE'S EE OB LEM. 


of considering the Bible a dull book, and, pardon me, 
dear child, I think even your mother, wise as she is, 
makes a mistake here. God’s book should not be asso- 
ciated in the mind of any body with any thought but 
that of privilege ! ” 

“ Mrs. Gray, if I can do a thing about it I will. But 
we haven’t a good place ! ” 

“ Maidie,” said Mr. Hildreth, who had been reading a 
paper in the room and could not help hearing some of 
the conversation, “ suppose you and I go to ride to-mor- 
row. Brown Bess will be the better for a canter, and I 
will ride Selim. I’ll help you gather in your young peo- 
ple. I’ll be superintendent, sexton, class-leader, and chap- 
lain in my own person, and, what is more, I’ll help you 
to a place ! ” 

“O! thank you, Cousin Dick,” said Maidie, with 
beaming eyes. Mr. Hildreth was a cousin many degrees 
removed, but Mrs. Fletcher and he had gone over the 
family genealogies and established a claim to kinship, so 
now, in friendly Southern fashion, Maidie called him 
“cousin.” 

“ Where is the place to be ? ” she asked, with some 
curiosity. 

“Wait until I show you ! ” was the reply. 

Maidie flew about faster than ever the next morning. 


DO WHAT YOU CAN. 


19 


that she might secure the time for her ride. In a black 
alpaca skirt, a pretty pink sateen blouse, and the white 
sun-bonnet tying in her luxuriant hair, she did not resem- 
ble a New York girl arrayed for a ride in the park, but 
she made a dainty, pretty picture, nevertheless, and so 
thought Mrs. Gray, who watched her setting out. 

“ Husband ! ” she said, “ now that the sweet girl is 
fairly out of the way, you must help me surprise her. 
Quick, dear, open that box in the corner ! ” 

“ What ant I to do with an incorrigible little wife who 
refuses to obey me when I bid her to rest, and, for once 
in her life, to be selfish ? ” said Mr. Gray, in mock de- 
spair, as he proceeded to wrench the cover from the big 
box which had reached Paradise by express that 
morning. 

“Do,” exclaimed the wife, “just what all good hus- 
bands do ; give her her own way, as you, the best of men, 
have done so many years. See,” she added, as the 
box lay open for inspection, “ here are ever such pretty 
things for Maidie’s room ; I’m going to transform it. And 
here are hymn-books for her experiment and a beautiful 
pictorial Bible for Tommy, who finds his path so full of 
thorns and briars.” 

“ That young man needs discipline,” said Mr. Gray. 

“ Well, the years will give it to him,” replied the wife. 

2 


t 


20 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM . 


“ Meantime, sugar is more attractive to most children 
than vinegar, and I’m going to try its effect this minute. 
Tommy ! ” she called, for the yellow-haired laddie was 
in sight, swinging lazily on the gate. 

“ Yes’m ! " he shouted, pleasantly. 

“ Come and help us do something to surprise your 
sister Maidie.” 

Tommy came on a run. During the next hour, while he 
trotted to and fro, climbed steps, drove nails, held cords, 
and made himself very useful, Mrs. Gray decided that a 
boy with such willing hands and feet, such clear blue 
eyes, and so resolute a set of the lips was a boy with good 
stuff in him. She saw that he needed to be set on the 
right track, that was all. 

“My eye!” said Tommy, “Won’t sister Maidie open 
her eyes when she comes home ! Why, there’s never been 
any thing so nice as this in Paradise that I’ve ever heard 
of. Has there, Aunt Phyllis? ” 

The old black woman, a jolly soul when she hadn’t 
one of her spells, when she felt compelled to make herself 
and every body else “ miserable,” took in the pretty 
chamber with an appreciative glance and a nod of her 
gaily turbaned head. 

“ Dats a fac\ honey,” she replied solemnly ; “ but our 
Miss Maidie deserve de best of ebery ting. She’s de mos’ 


DO WHAT YOU CAN. 


21 


oncommonest dear chile in dis worl’ ! ‘ Swing low, sweet 
chariot, cornin’ for to carry me home ! ’ ” she crooned, as 
she walked to her own domain. 

When Maidie paused on the threshold of her room, 
and hesitated for an instant, with the feeling that she, 
or it, was bewitched, Mr. and Mrs. Gray, under cover 
of a half-drawn portiere at their own door, were watch- 
ing her eagerly. Tommy was ensconced in a nook on 
the landing over her head. Aunt Phyllis, with floury 
hands, left the kitchen to share the sight. 

Well might Maidie have hesitated. On the floor be- 
fore her bed lay a large, soft rug, in dull grays and 
browns, a feast of indistinct color, with here and there a 
touch of warm yellow which lit it up like a stray sun- 
beam. Swinging shelves on the wall held a half-dozen 
new books, and left space for the favorites, among the old 
ones. A cool, finely engraved etching, framed in oak, 
hung on one side of the room, and on the other was a 
small oval mirror. Beside the window, where Maidie’s 
little rocking-chair always stood, were a great pile of 
hymn-books, half a dozen Bibles, and twenty-five Testa- 
ments. The big Bible, with pictures, was on a stand 
dose by. 

“ Mother ! dear mother ! ” 

Maidie spoke low, but the mother was not far off. Mrs. 


22 


MAIDIE' S PROBLEM 


Gray had taken her into the secret, fearing resistance 
from the sensitive pride of the woman who belonged to 
an independent class to whom the acceptance of favors 
does not come easily. 

“ Maidie is so helpful and kind. You must let me treat 
her like a younger sister, because we both belong to the 
same family,” she had said. And Mrs. Fletcher had con- 
sented, realizing how pleased her darling right-hand 
daughter would be at the pretty arrangements in her room. 

“What does it all mean ? ” said Maidie, her eyes rov- 
ing from one dainty touch to another. 

“Just that you must be a very useful, happy girl, to 
pay your kind friends,” answered the mother, whose sal- 
low cheek for the moment glowed with a rose-flush. 

“ I’ll try,” said Maidie, as she ran to kiss Mrs. Gray. 

“ Cousin Dick has given me the keys of Myrtle Hall, 
his old homestead,” she explained an hour later, “and 
we may ask our boys and girls there and begin next Sun- 
day. The rooms are large, the place is in the middle of 
Paradise, and the grounds have been shut up so long 
that it will be a novelty to roam about them. Five boys 
and one girl have promised to come. But there’s ever 
so much cleaning, sweeping, dusting, washing windows, 
before the place can be occupied. Mother, will Aunt 
Phyllis help?” 


DO WHAT YOU CAN \ 


23 


“ No knowing, dear. She is a person of moods.” 

Tommy interposed emphatically. “Sister Maidie, I’ll 
help.” 

“So will I,” said Ellen. 

“ And,” said Mr. Gray, “ you may count on your hum- 
ble servant.” 

“ Somehow or other the rooms will be made ready,” Mrs. 
Fletcher added in her quiet way. “ It is borne in on me 
that you’ll have unexpected help. Such a precious verse 
has been singing itself in my heart all this day: ‘ Fear 
not, little flock ; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to 
give you the kingdom.’ ” 

“ That ought to be enough for a King’s Daughter,” said 
Mrs. Gray. 

“ Or a King’s Son,” said her husband. 

“ Well, for my part,” came the loud voice of Si 
Fletcher, “ Fve never understood how King’s Daughters 
and Sons can be contented to be so poverty-stricken and 
to work so hard as some of us do. I don’t fancy it myself.” 

“ Shall the servant be better than his lord?” said Mr. 
Hildreth. “You remember, old friend, that even Christ 
pleased not himself.” 

“ And,” Mr. Gray continued, “ ‘ seek ye first the king- 
dom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things 
shall be added unto you.’ ” 


24 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


Tommy went soberly from his perch on the upper 
landing to his supper of corn-bread and molasses. 

“ I tell you what,” he said to himself, “ they had to 
learn the Bible when they were fellows like me, I’ll be 
bound. They know lots of it now. And it isn’t a bad 
thing either ; for they are splendid people, and no end 
of good to Sister Maidie.” 


TEDDY AND TOMMY. 


25 


CHAPTER III. 


Teddy L. Saunders and Tommy Fletcher. 



EDDY L. SAUNDERS is coming to your Sun- 


-L day-school, sister Maidie,” announced Tommy 
in a triumphant tone. “ He’s coming to have fun.” 

“ And who pray is Teddy L. Saunders!” inquired Mr. 
Fletcher. “ He doesn’t belong around here ! The 
question is, What right has he to make things hard for 
my Maidie. Tom, you tell the young man that I’ll be 
after him, if he cuts up any capers.” 

“Teddy goes to our school. He’s a boy from Maine, 
and he lives with his aunt, Betty Forsyth. He’s a good 
enough fellow,” said Tommy, “ and he wants to come.” 

“ How old is your friend ?” asked Mr. Hildreth. 

“ O ! I don’t know.” 

“ Is he older than you are ? ” 

“Teddy L. Saunders? O yes, sir. He’s thirteen, 
and I'm only going on ’leven. But all the boys do 
whatever he says. He’s the leader of our school.” 

“ Then by all means let him come, and we will set 
him to work,” said Maidie. “ I’ve a bright idea. We’ll 
let him be librarian.” 


26 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 


More than once I have known this to work to a 
marvel with a troublesome boy in a Sunday-school. Is 
he disposed to be boisterous ? Ask him to sit in front 
and help lead the singing. Is he restless, active, full off 
mischief? Give him some responsible post, and set 
him to work to build up, instead of to pull down. Maidie 
showed her good sense in this bit of a speech about the 
new-comer, Teddy L. Saunders, who was coming just 
for fun. 

A great deal of hard work was done during Friday and 
Saturday, for those two days were all that were left of the 
week when Maidie’s plans were matured. The old rooms, 
long shut up, were scrubbed and scoured, aired and 
sunned, and when Aunt Phyllis and the young mulatto 
girl, who had been pressed in to help her, had finished 
their tasks the house fairly shone. Then Mr. Fletcher 
stirred around and found seats, and an old desk for 
Maidie, and he announced, to her delight, that he had 
tuned his old violin, and meant to go over and lead the 
singing. Now, up the county and down Si Fletcher 
was noted for his fiddling, and Maidie fairly danced for 

joy when she heard his declaration. 

\ 

“ Mother dear," she whispered, “ Do you think father 
can have found the best things after all ? Is he a Chris- 
tian, and did we never know it ? ” 


TEDDY AND TOMMY . 


^7 


Far one of the griefs which had beset this dear mother’s 
heart, and in which her daughter had given her loving 
sympathy, was a very old one — the lack of care on the 
part of the husband and father for the things which 
were nearest their hearts ; the best things. Mr. Fletcher 
had often remarked, in a laughing way. 

“ My wife has enough religion for us both.” 

In which he made a very great and grave mistake. 
There are some relations in which a wife cannot help her 
husband, nor a husband a wife. Each must have relig- 
ion for himself or herself alone. 

“ It may be, dear daughter, that love of you will lead 
your father to Christ,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “ and it may 
be that he is seeking and we have not known it. At 
any rate, I am glad that he will go into this work and 
aid you. Good will surely come of it.” 

So, on Sunday afternoon, when Teddy L. came swag- 
gering along, as full of mischief as ever a lad of thirteen 
was in this queer world of ours, he found himself out- 
generaled. The bright blue eyes were met by the 
steady brown ones of Maidie, who held out her hand in 
welcome. Mrs. Gray herself asked the new recruit to 
take a seat where he could keep the younger boys in 
order, Mr. Hildreth told him that he would probably be 
appointed librarian, and before Teddy knew how it 


28 


MAI DIE'S PROBLEM. 


had happened, he was pledged to assist the new enter- 
prise with all his might and main. 

People who know poverty only as it exists in great 
towns or as it hides in New England villages, who know 
only the unthrift of a careless Irish peasantry trans- 
planted to the plenty of this new world, cannot under- 
stand the cheerful yet absolute penury of some South- 
ern localities. Around Paradise Knoll there was a 
scattered circle of worn-out little farmsteads, where 
large families, huddled together in small half-ruined 
cabins, had almost nothing to wear, lived on corn-bread 
and bacon, and were as jolly, irresponsible, and igno- 
rant as ever were white people under the sun. Not the 
beggars of Naples or Spain were more averse to work, 
and never were grown-up men and women more con- 
tented in very disagreeable circumstances. 

Between the children of these lazy, profane, and irre- 
ligious people and those of the better classes of the com- 
munity there was little intercourse. Maidie’s desire to 
do something for the poor, neglected little ones was a 
puzzle to the girls in her own rank, and it was explained 
by one of them in this way : 

“ Y ou see, Maidie Fletcher’s grandpapa was a preacher, 
and mamma says he was perfectly bent on saving souls. 
Of course, she has inherited the taste.” 


TEDDY AND TOMMY. 


29 


“ It’s a good thing,” replied the person to whom she 
was talking, who happened to be Tedd’s aunt. “ Why 
don’t you join her, Lucy ? ” 

“ O ! I don’t care for being a domestic missionary,” 
was the flippant answer. “ I leave that to serious 
people, like Teddy. For my part I don’t believe much 
in trying to elevate the lowly.” 

Teddy was studying a tough geometry lesson. He 
looked up from his book, and the blue eyes had a pecul- 
iar flash in their glance. 

“ Miss Lucy,” he asked, “ do you believe in Jesus ? ” 

‘‘Why, of course, Teddy, I’m not a heathen.” 

“Well, he came to preach the Gospel to the poor. 
I’ve made my mind up that I’m going to do this 
work, if I can. I haven’t said much about it, but from 
what I can see, home missionaries and foreign mission- 
aries are both treading in his steps.” 

A change had come over Teddy, not the less real 
that it was very sudden, and accompanied by no period 
of apparently gloomy or even deep thought or self-ques- 
tioning. The Holy Spirit has many different ways of 
approaching a soul, and one of the grave mistakes made 
by us, in our blindness, is in expecting that every soul 
shall be led to the kingdom along precisely the same 
lines. If we get to the Master, and he accepts our 


30 


MA fDIE'S PROBLEM. 


service, it does not matter very much by what steps we 
were led. All his life Teddy Saunders will bless God 
that when he went to the little Sunday-school in the 
woods, intending to make a disturbance, and be a 
trouble and a terror, through boyish love of fun, a girl’s 
sweet look and a man’s cordial words changed his pur- 
pose, and really, though nobody dreamed of it then, set 
him on another track for the rest of his journey in the 
world. Conversion means a round turn, or a turn 
round, you know, and the blessed turning came to 
Teddy at the instant that Mr. Hildreth, following out 
Maidie’s happy thought, said to him. 

“You shall be librarian, sir.” 

One cannot well be a librarian if he has no books, and 
the stock on hand was very meager. But as yet the 
scholars were few in number, and the majority of the 
few could not read. To teach them orally was neces- 
sary, and after devoting themselves to repeating verses, 
and “ lining out ” hymns, and telling Bible-stories, the 
teachers determined on beginning with first principles, 
and imparting the alphabet. As soon as it was known 
about the country-side that such work was going on 
the school began to grow. The second Sunday the 
original ten was doubled, on the third there were thirty- 
five children present, and on the fifth there were fifty. 


TEDDY AND TOMMY. 


3i 


some of whom had walked a distance of six miles, over 
rough mountain roads, to gratify their curiosity, and to 
learn to read. 

Why did they not attend the day-schools ? is the nat- 
ural inquiry here. Partly because these were attended 
by the children of the more respectable and of the 
well-to-do and the two classes did not meet on equal 
terms, and partly because some of the bigger boys and 
girls were able to work and earn a little money for their 
parents, who could not spare them to go to school. 
Chiefly, I think, they came because the prayers of Maidie 
and her friends were answered ; and they were very 
earnest in praying over the school. 

“ I should have a good deal of trouble in keeping 
order,” said Maidie to her mother, one Sabbath when 
the school had been large, and the children rather in- 
attentive, “ if father were not such a champion, and if 
he didn’t strike up a rousing tune when the boys grow 
obstreperous. You should hear them strike in with, « I 
must be a lover of the Lord.’ It’s really grand.” 

“ How does Teddy behave ? ” 

“ Teddy is magnificent. There is nothing I suggest 
that he is not quite ready to do, and he has written to 
his home in Maine to see if the friends there don't 
want to send us more books for the library. As for 


32 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM . 


Tommy, he does whatever Teddy tells him to do, and the 
little fellow was never so good in his life.” 

“ That is true,” the mother answered. “ I haven’t had 
to reprove him in ever so long. Tommy is becoming a 
comfort.” 

As she spoke there was the sound of a crash in the 
kitchen, and the rattle and bang of pots and pans on the 
floor, with the breaking of dishes, put an end to the con- 
versation. Both mother and daughter flew to the place. 
A tableau met their atonished eyes. 

Tommy, pale and ghastly, was holding up a bleeding 
hand, and trying to keep from screaming with pain. 
The window was broken, the table was upset, Mrs. 
Fletcher’s best china tea-things were in fragments, and 
Aunt Phyllis, a picture of fury, was gesticulating and 
scolding. . 

“You bad, bad young limb!” she cried, “Won’t 
you jes’ get one whipping when I tell yo’ father what 
you done broke. Climbin’ on de kitchen table, and 
puttin’ yo’ paws clar through the window-glass. Yo’ve 
done mischief enough for one day. Miss Maidie, you 
needn’t plead for him. He’ll get his come-up-ance dis 
time, shore ! ” 

Aunt Phyllis was a privileged person, and Tommy’s 
accidents had before this been rewarded by an applica- 


TEDDY AND TOMMY. 


33 


tion of his father’s switch, but now there was no ques- 
tion of punishment in the case, for just as Mr. Fletcher, 
who had heard the uproar, appeared in the door-way, 
Tommy for the first time in his life quietly fainted away. 
Then the consternation was greater than ever for a few 
moments. 

“ He was rushing after a butterfly when it happened,” 
Maidie explained to Mrs. Gray later, when the boy 
had revived, the hand been bandaged, Aunt Phyllis 
soothed, and Mrs. Fletcher, with tears in her eyes, had 
ruefully gathered up the fragments of her cherished 
household treasures. 

44 He ought to have been more careful,” Mr. Fletcher 
said; 44 but this time Tommy’s recklessness has been 
sufficiently punished, for his hand will be useless for 
some time, poor little man !” 

44 The dear Lord took our only boy to himself,” said 
Mr. Gray, 44 and that may have made me feel more ten- 
derly toward the children of others, but I never feel that 
it is right to punish a child for an accident, or for a 
fault which is simply the result of a thoughtless impulse. 
Such faults usually bring their own consequences, as in 
Tommy’s case. Willful naughtiness is different, of course; 
yet even then I believe in waiting for a better mood, if 
one can. Love is a so much stronger force than anger. 


34 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM . 


Aunt Phyllis, like most of her class, is vindictive 
when a child’s offense gives her trouble. It should not 
be so with those who are her superiors in point of edu- 
cation and knowledge.” 

“I’ll throw my switch into the fire,*” said the good- 
natured inn-keeper, “ though I’ve seldom used it. as my 
children know. The hardest punishment to them T do 
believe, is always the grieving of father and mothe. 

Just then a rider in hot haste drew his bridle rein 
at the door. 



CHANGES . 


35 


CHAPTER IV. 

Changes. 

T HE messenger had brought a telegram which 
summoned the Grays immediately to the North, 
.-i the only train they could reach that day was ten 
miles off, and they could not wait for the stage, their 
packing was hurriedly accomplished, Maidie helping 
with all her might, though her heart sank at the thought 
of doing without Mrs. Gray just when she had begun 
to learn so much from the dear lady, and to feel for the 
first time in her life what it was to have a sympathetic 
helper in her study and aspiration. 

“ I will writfe to you often, dear,” said Mrs. Gray, “ and 
you must go on with your drawing and your English litera- 
ture as best you can. A few minutes a day, every day , 
tells wonderfully in the end on one’s improvement. And 
Mr. Hildreth will be here to help you in the school, and 
your father, too, is a host.” 

“We will do our best, dear Mrs. Gray,” said Maidie, 
bravely; but when the friends were fairly off, driving 
away with Mr. Fletcher in the only conveyance the inn 

afforded, Tommy proudly perched on the front seat by 
3 


36 


M A ID IE'S PROBLEM. 


his father’s side, the girl sank down beside the bed 
in the dismantled room and cried and cried. 

In the midst of her sobs Aunt Phyllis appeared on 
the scene, speaking for once so quietly that Maidie knew 
something serious was the matter. 

“Miss Maidie, honey, dere no time foh cryin’ now. 
Your mother done got a fearful misery in her breast.” 

Maidie needed no urging. Her mother’s attacks of 
pleurisy were the most alarming experiences of her life ; 
the keen-edged pain, cutting knife-like at every breath, 
the fever, the gasps of agony — Maidie knew how dread- 
ful it all was, and there was no doctor nearer than the 
next village, five miles over the hills. Down-stairs she 
hastened, forgetful of the Grays and their going, in this 
more pressing trouble, and presently she was at her 
mother’s bedside, laying mustard poultices on the seat 
of pain, and hushing every sound in the household. 
The worst agony was soon alleviated, but after such an 
attack Mrs. Fletcher was helpless for days, and the bur- 
den of housekeeping devolved upon the willing shoulders 
of the. young daughter. 

It was late in the afternoon before her father returned, 
and one glimpse of his face showed Maidie that another 
trial was before her. Mr. Fletcher had occasional fits of 
despondency, when it was almost impossible to arouse 


CHANGES. 


37 


him to interest in any thing, and the sight of the usu- 
ally cheery, bustling man, sitting listless and apathetic in 
his chair as if he were completely baffled and beaten, 
was enough to make every body in the house discour- 
aged. In these seasons it sometimes seemed as if an 
actual cloak of gray fog had settled down on the scene, 
through which you could not penetrate, nor take one 
step ahead. 

Mr. Fletcher had never been a successful man. Al- 
ways when he had made a little advance in life some 
obstacle had barred his way, or some disappointment 
thrown him back. Now, with Mr. Gray and his wife 
paying liberal board, much larger than he had usually 
received, he had hoped to clear off a mortgage which 
was a millstone around his neck, and, like most sanguine 
people, he had planned to do much more than this. 
For in the wake of the Grays his kindling fancy had seen 
a train of rich and generous people coming to winter or 
summer at Paradise Knoll, and it had been his dream to 
send Maidie to the art school in New York, which he 
knew was, to her thought, a far-off gleam of heaven ; to 
give Tommy, by and by, a good education, with sev- 
eral years at Lexington or Williamsburg ; and, in short, 
the schemes in the good man’s head, which all started 
from the coming of the two quiet people from New 


38 


MAIDIE' S PROBLEM. 


York, quite surpassed those of the famous milk-maid 
counting her chickens before they were hatched. The 
collapse was terrible ; the more so that common sense 
whispered that his dreams and schemes had a very airy 
and cloudy foundation indeed. 

But the finishing touch had been put, though Maidie 
did not know it, upon his hopefulness and courage, a 
mile or so from home, where he had met Mr. Hildreth 
all unaware that the Grays were gone. Mr. Hildreth 
had a letter in his hand, and was coming from the post- 
office. 

“ Si, my friend,” said this gentleman, “ I’m very sorry, 
and more on Maidie’s account than my own or yours ; 
but some land interests of mine in Florida require imme- 
diate looking after, and I’m compelled to leave you all 
at very short notice. It was the last thing I thought of 
this morning, turning my back so soon on dear Paradise 
Knoll, but a wanderer like myself never finds time to set 
his foot down in one spot long,” 

“It never rains but it pours,” is a homely adage, but 
a true one. Maidie had nothing to do except make the 
best of things, and she set about doing it. Taking no 
notice of her father’s depression, she began preparations 
for a very good supper, and while Aunt Phyllis tossed 
up a feathery omelet and made such golden brown 


CHANGES. 


39 


waffles as were never to be found outside of Paradise inn, 
Maidie took out a noble ham, and cut slices of brown 
bread and white, and when the coffee was steaming on the 
range she called the family to the table. 

“Why, daughter,” said Mr. Fletcher, “you don’t take 
it to heart as I thought you would, this upsetting of 
every thing. I suppose worrying over mother has made 
you forget all about the hard times we used to have ; 
they’re coming on us again, dear, as fast as they can. I 
shouldn’t be surprised if we were all turned out of house 
and home before long — the mortgage foreclosed, the 
stock sold, and we all in the poor-house.” 

“ Father, dear,” said Maidie with an arm around his 
neck and a caressing hand smoothing back his gray hair, 
“ come and have your supper while it’s hot. I'm so glad 
that mother is over the pain for this time that I haven’t 
room in my heart for any thing but thankfulness. We 
lived before the dear Grays came, and we’ll live now 
that they’re gone.” 

“ But we can’t live on air, Maidie, with this great 
family ! ” 

“Which of us could you spare, dear father?” said 
practical Maidie. 

“O ! if you put it so. not one,” and cheered by the 
good fare, the sweet face, and the kind ministries of the 


40 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


courageous girl the father ate, the cloud was lifted, and 
he went out to attend to his evening duties. 

“You is a bressed angel, Miss Maidie; an’ dat am a 
fac’ ! ” said Aunt Phyllis. 

“ But, Maidie,” said her father, coming in and resuming 
the conversation, “ where are we to get two hundred 
dollars by next spring unless we borrow ? and I’ve made 
up my mind never to borrow again ; and there’s nobody, so 
far as I know, who has any thing to lend.” 

“We haven’t to make up our minds to-night, dear,” 
answered Maidie. “ Let us sleep on it.” 

This, as a rule, is good advice. The morning beams 
cheerfully on many a soul which last night groped in 
obscurity, and when we imitate the Psalmist, who said, 
“ I laid me down and slept, I awaked, for the Lord sus- 
tained me,” we generally discover that the Lord’s prom- 
ises have been kept, and that he has sent his aid just in 
time. 

“ It may not be my way, 

It may not be thy way, 

And yet in his own way 
The Lord will provide.” 

Early the next day, while Mrs. Fletcher, all suffering 
gone and only the weakness left which follows pain, was 
lying among her pillows, pale and sweet as a lily, her 
husband rose, quietly dressed himself, and stepped out 


CHANGES. 


4i 


into the porch. It was such a morning as made Para- 
dise Knoll seem fitly named. The clematis vine which 
garlanded the porch was a mass of waving tendrils, 
shining leaves, and delicate purple bloom, humming- 
birds and wrens were flitting and darting through its 
luxuriant foiliage, roses were scenting the air, pansies 
were making a many-hued carpet in the great oval bed 
before the inn door, and far away the lifted summits of 
the mountains sparkled and gleamed through veils of 
amethyst and silver. 

Maidie joined her father, slipping her hand through his 
arm and giving him a good-morning kiss. 

“ Papa," she said, “ I’ve a project." 

“The little head is a famous one for projects,” he 
answered. “ Unfold it." 

“ It is a very ambitious one, and I feel very timid 
about telling it, because I am so very sure of my youth 
and my imperfections, and yet, papa, I believe, if you and 
mother will let me try, I can make something of it." 

“ Well, dearie. I’m all attention." 

“You know the school-house at Cliffside has been 
closed for months, and the board cannot find a teacher 
who can afford to go for the little salary which is offered. 
Now, since I’ve had the Sunday class I’ve found out that I 
like to teach, and though I’m not very far advanced I’m 


42 


MAID/E'S PROBLEM. 


beyond any of the children who go there to school, when 
it’s open. Living at home, with no board to pay, I could 
take the salary, and it would be not only enough for me 
but a real help in the house, and all our children could 
go there to school ; and in $ny case, father, there would 
be no harm in my trying when there’s so little com- 
ing in.” 

“ My brave little maid, you shall have your own way 
about it,” said Mr. Fletcher; “and I’ll try and imitate 
your example, and not be a coward any longer. But 
how do you propose to carry on the Sunday-school, dear, 
now that our good friends and helpers have left us so 
suddenly ? ” * 

“ I’ve thought of a way,” said the girl, whose head 
was famous for planning. “ It is to get the young people 
around, and the older children, with the little ones too, 
if they are willing, to join a society ; we might call it a 
League, something like the wonderful Endeavor societies 
that we’ve heard so much about, and we’ll have meet- 
ings, and govern ourselves, and do no end of things, 
once we are fairly started and set going.” 

“ O, Maidie, Maidie ! what a thing it is to be young. 
But the boys will be your chief draw-back — the young 
irrepressibles.” 

“ The boys shall be my guard of honor,” said Maidie, 


CHANGES. 


43 


“ and if here isn’t Teddy coming as if he had read that 
beautiful verse, ‘The king’s business requireth haste.’ 
Teddy, what is it? ” she exclaimed, as the lad, flushed 
and breathless, stopped, hat in hand, before her father 
and herself. 

“ The new library has come, Miss Maidie.” 

“ The new library ? ” 

“ Yes, indeed. Didn’t I tell you that I wrote to my big 
brother up home, and told him what we needed, and 
begged for old books, and— there never was such a dear 
fellow in the world before — he’s sent us a spick and 
span lot of new books, a hundred of them, Miss Maidie, 
and not a dull nor a stupid one in the list.” 

“Before a single book is given out, Teddy, they must 
every one be covered, and a catalogue written, and the 
books must be properly numbered and classified.” 

“You see,” said Mr. Fletcher, patting Maidie’s head, 
“ my daughter has the qualities necessary for a woman of 
business ! ” 

“ Now, Teddy,” said Maidie, not heeding this interrup- 
tion, though she smiled at her father’s compliment, 
“ will you do something for me ? ” 

“ Any thing I can,” he said gallantly, “ command 
your humble servant.” 

“ Well go out to-day and ask all the girls and boys 


44 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM . 


to meet me in our big south parlor — that will be far 
enough from mother not to disturb her — to-night at 
seven o’clock, and then we’ll make our arrangements.” 

The commission was most agreeable to Teddy, and 
at the hour named the south parlor was filled with a 
bevy of bright, expectant young people. 

Meanwhile Maidie had sent a modest note to the 
school committee, declaring her readiness to take charge 
of the Cliffside school for the next six months. 

“ The child is undertaking too much,” sighed the 
mother, when she heard of it. 

“ She is perfectly well, overflowing with energy, and 
to try will make her happy,” said the father. And the 
mother gave her consent. 




A LEAGUE FOE GOOD. 


45 


CHAPTER V. 

A League for Good. 

Y OU would hardly believe it, but one of the worst 
influences at Paradise Knoll came from the source 
of evil which, more than any other, causes misery 
and woe in every part of this land. Do you want to 
know what is at the bottom of most of the domestic un- 
happiness, most of the poverty, most of the crime in our 
great republic ? I can tell you in one word : Whisky ! 
And Paradise Knoll had this serpent to contend with, 
just as many a larger town and crowded city has. 

When Maidie said to the thronging friends assembled 
in her parlor, “ Let’s make our League a temperance so- 
ciety,” there was at once a breeze of opposition. ' Public 
opinion at Paradise Knoll had not yet reached the point 
it has with us in most of our homes and surroundings, 
and it was customary for the hospitable, whenever they 
wished to show courtesy or pay honor to a friend or 
guest, to offer him a tiny glass of home-brewed cordial 
or a mint-julep, or else a glass of wine from a cobwebbed 
bottle ; these being the usual accompaniments of the rich 
cake of which every housekeeper had a stock always on 


46 


MAI DIE'S PROBLEM. 


hand in her store-room. Mr. Fletcher, as a keeper of a 
temperance inn, had lost, his neighbors said, thousands of 
dollars, and often and often had he been urged, and almost 
tempted, to yield his principles and set up a bar, and 
forego the stand he had taken never to sell intoxicants. 
Loving God was not at the root of his independent firm- 
ness, at least not at this time, but he did truly and ear- 
nestly love his wife. And the daughter of a Methodist 
circuit-rider who had fought the devil and all his works 
— including this worst of the latter — could not have 
eaten bread bought with rum, yes, and with the price 
of the souls of men. Maidie Fletcher had grown up 
among total abstainers ; a rare thing in that section of 
the country, in that period. 

However, she did not then press her point. Christine 
Evelett, a sweet girl about her own age, suggested that 
their league should do all the good it could, taking for 
its motto, “ The greatest of these is charity,” which she 
explained meant not alms-giving, but unselfish love. 
Maidie’s little cross, with its three graven letters, I. H. N. t 
gave her the idea of self-denial, but Lawrence Griffith 
said truly : 

“ There are some who don’t like the look of a cross, 
Miss Maidie ; we cannot take that for a badge.” 

“ I don’t see,” said Teddy, flashing out a quick answer. 


A LEAGUE FOR GOOD. 


47 


“ why any body who claims to be a Christian ever ob- 
jects to a cross. Haven’t we a right to it if we are fol- 
lowers of the Lord, I’d like to know ? ” 

“ It isn’t necessary to have a badge,” remarked Will 
Maynard. “ We can work together, have our club, and 
hold our meetings without any symbol. I reckon, now, 
Maidie means us to take hold and carry on that Sunday- 
school of hers. How can we, though, if we’re not church 
members ? ” 

There was a discussion on this point which was 
long and serious. To teach children the way to Christ 
when you haven’t found it yourself is a very illogical 
proceeding on the face of it, but, on the other hand, 
thousands of people have found the blessed Saviour in 
just this simple manner, entering on a life of devoted 
service through this gate. 

Maidie said : 

“ I don’t want to preach to any body, nor to have you 
think that I am dictating, but I'd like to ask this : ‘ Is 
there one here who hates Jesus ? Is there one who would 
be his enemy? 

“ No, indeed I ’’was the ready chorus. 

“ Then, if not enemies, you are friends, and the best 
thing you can do is to give a friend’s service. And now 
let us put down our names, and go about our first bit of 


48 


MATDIE 'S PROBLEM . 

work, which will be to put Ted’s library in order for 
circulation.” 

This proved a very delightful piece of work, bringing the 
young people into pleasant fellowship for several evenings. 
On the last, at the appointed hour of meeting Will May- 
nard and Lawrence Griffith were not on hand, and when 
they did arrive Lawrence was excited and quarrelsome, 
evidently not quite himself. Will was uneasy, and did 
not rest until he had succeded in taking Lawrence home, 
a step which the usually gentlemanly fellow resisted, even 
to the extremity of blurting out an oath. 

An awe-struck silence fell on the group when the two 
friends had gone. 

Christine Evelett was the first to break it; 

“Notwithstanding this ,” she observed, “I’m not in 
favor of asking any one to sign away his personal lib- 
erty.” 

“ It is very ungentlemanly and shameful for Lawrence 
to have come here when he could not control himself,” 
Marcia Dillingham said, haughtily drawing up her head, 
and speaking in a cold and affronted voice. “ I think he 
should beg our pardon, or resign from the League at 
once.” 

“ Would it not be kinder, girls, to take no notice ? He 
will be miserably unhappy when he awakens to what he 


A LEAGUE FOR GOOD. 


49 


has done, and you know it is an inheritance in his fam- 
ily. Doubtless, the poor boy is doomed. Remember his 
father and his grandfather — hard drinkers, both.” 

“ And his granduncle, who was drowned in crossing 
the ford one very stormy night, after he had been at a 
convivial party.” This was said by a girl who had not 
hitherto spoken, Rachel Dunbar. 

“ P’or my part,” said Maidie, “ all that you say makes 
me more than ever in favor of introducing a pledge into 
our constitution. Talk of personal liberty ! The greatest 
slavery of which one can think is that to a wretched 
habit. * Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin,’ 
fettered and bound in chains, and made, like poor blind 
Samson, to grind in the prison-house. I am in favor of 
liberty under law, not of license to do wrong and lose 
one’s self-respect, and one’s power to do good.” 

“ But, my dear,” her mother said, for Mrs. Fletcher 
was a favorite with the young people and sometimes 
came into the room where they met, and where, like bees 
or beavers, or some other busy creatures, they worked to 
finish the covering of their books, “ a pledge taken in 
one’s own strength never reformed any body. There 
must be something much stronger than that, much more 
vital. All life-strength comes from within. I haven’t 
your faith in that which is merely outward.” 


50 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 


“What do you think the best safeguard for a tempted 
soul, dear Mrs. Fletcher? ” said Marcia, speaking gently 
as her eyes rested on the saintly face of the elder woman. 

“ A true faith in the Master ; a real love to him ; a will 
set in full accord with the divine.” 

“ And how is that to be gained ? ” 

“As one gains any other good thing, dear child : by 
seeking, by asking, by knocking. ‘ Whosoever will * 
may have the full sweetness of belonging to Christ, may 
have the joy of being a worker with him.” 

“But suppose,” and there was a general hush, for 
every body felt the spell of Mrs. Fletcher’s earnestness 
and of Marcia’s mood ; “ suppose one has no particular 
feeling of need, or of want — no great sorrow for sin, no 
emotion such as she knows she ought to have — what is 
she to do? ” 

“We attach too much importance to feeling, my dear. 
Right feeling is good, but right doing is better. I be- 
lieve in such a case in going to the Lord in prayer, and 
saying, ‘ I haven’t a single feeling that I ought to have, 
I haven’t even the comprehension of my need, but I give 
myself to be thy servant, and I’m ready for any thing thou 
hast for me to do.’ The hearty doing for Christ’s sake 
would be the precursor of the right feeling. Conversion, 
as you must have heard before, is only turning round. 


A LEAGUE FOR GOOD. 


51 


It’s serving under the King's banner, instead of under 
that of the rebels." 

“ Please tells us what books you would advise us to 

read on devotional subjects, Mrs. Fletcher ? ” 

“ The Bible, first and last ; and never be afraid that you 

will exhaust it, for it’s deeper and wider than the sea. 

And, next to the Bible, there’s nothing to compare with 

the Pilgriiit's Progress , the most enchanting of books. 

Strange to say, very few of these young people, though 

living in an atmosphere favorable to mental growth, were 

very familiar with the old classic of John Bunyan, on 

which it is safe to say their parents could have passed 

an examination at their age. It was voted that the League 

should take up the book as a regular study, and read 

some of it at every meeting. 

Meanwhile the thought of Lawrence pressed heavily 

on Maidie’s mind ; she wanted to do' what she could to 

save him, and still she hardly knew how to set about it. 

“ Wait for the Lord’s leading," said the sensible mother. 

The opportunity came when it was least expected. 

In a rural place like Paradise Knoll every body is ready 

to undertake a neighborly office for every body else, and 
✓ 

where the mail arrives, not four or five times a day, 
as in New York and Boston, but only twice a week, the 

people who happen first to pass the post office are 

4 


52 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


quite likely to carry the letters and papers to those who 
live on their homeward route. Lawrence, riding to mill 
with a bag of corn to be ground into such fresh snowy 
meal as one finds nowhere out of the South, was hailed 
by the postmaster, with 

“ Hallo ! Lawrie, won’t you take Miss Maidie Fletcher 
her mail ? She’s the favored one this week, sureZy ! ” 

And he held out a whole sheaf of letters and papers 
for Lawrie’s willing hand. 

Among the budget was a long, delightful missive from 
Mrs. Gray, so charmingly like a talk with the sweet 
woman’s self that Maidie lingered over the closely writ- 
ten pages with a gladness beyond her power to tell.. A 
girl’s love for an older woman who has reached out a 
helpful hand to her partakes of a worshipful quality, and 
becomes in her life both aspiration and possession. 

Lawrence had delivered his letters and was going 
away when Mrs. Fletcher detained him. 

“ You are not going anywhere else before you go home, 
are you, Lawrie ? ” 

“No, Mrs. Fletcher.” 

“ Then, do lend me your strong arm and bright eyes 
for a few minutes. My boy Tommy is hardly tall enough 
to assist me in managing curtains and driving in nails 
for pictures. You see, we have had a house-cleaning. 


A LEAGUE FOR GOOD. 


53 


Whenever we do have one Mr. Fletcher flies. He takes 
that day to go to market or to town.” 

Lawrence lent himself most cordially to help Auntie 
Fletcher, as, being his mother’s life-long friend, he had 
been taught to call her. Ancf then Maidie came, and as 
he descended the step-ladder asked him why he had not 
come to their League meeting. 

With down-cast eyes the lad hesitated an instant. 
Then he replied, 

“To tell the truth, I’m not good enough for such 
company.” 

“ O, Lawrence ! ” 

“ ’Deed I'm not. There’s nothing before me but de- 
struction. I may as well keep away from decent people.” 

“ Lawrence,” said Maidie, “ how can you speak so ? 
You, with your youth and health — and manhood and 
the world before you ! Don’t be weak ! Be a man.” 

“ It isn’t in me to resist temptation.” 

‘‘ It’s in Christ to enable you to do so. When we are 
weak, then are we strong.” 

“ He. that overcometh shall inherit all things,” said 
Mrs. Fletcher, returning from another room, with her 
arms full of snow-white linen. “ Though your sins be as 
scarlet, ye shall be whiter than snow.” 

The gloom on Lawrence’s face only deepened, and 




54 MAI DIE 'S PROBLEM. 

Mrs. Fletcher turned away, breathing a prayer for him 
in her heart. Suddenly Maidie had an inspiration. 

Loosening from its placd on her breast her silver 
cross this daughter of the King laid it in her friend’s 
hand. 

“ Lawrence,” she said, pleadingly, “ take this, and do 
me the favor to carry it in your pocket, so that you can 
sometimes touch it when you are tempted, or take it out 
and look at it when the desire to do wrong is very’ hard 
to resist. Don’t you remember the 4 In Hoc Signo Vinces ’ 
of Constantine ? This is the most precious thing I own, 
Lawrence, for nothing else ever spoke to me as this tiny 
cross has, when I’ve been discouraged or tired, and I 
know it will not fail you.” 

“ Thank you, Miss Maidie ! ” said the boy, simply. 
And I do not think the less of him that as he mounted 
his horse and turned homeward he could hardly see for 
the tears. 

Midway on the road between the inn and his mother’s 
farm, he stopped and kissed the tiny talisman, and made 
a resolution, which, God helping him, he has thus far 
kept. 

If any body reading this chapter has inherited a ten- 
dency to any evil, or weakness, or sin, let that person 
take the greater care to guard the spot where the enemy 


A LEAGUE FOR GOOD. 


55 


will be most likely to make his attack. The soldier sets 
the battle in array where the enemy is weakest, it is true, 
but, if he be a veteran and skilled in tactics, he also sets 
his strongest defenses where he is sure that the fortress 
is most likely to be attacked. 




56 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 


/ 


CHAPTER VI. 

Rufus. 

(( *|\ T AKE your school-room as pretty as you can,” 
1VJL wrote Mrs. Gray, “ and be sure always to wear 
a bright ribbon at your neck, and dress your hair prettily. 
You will find it five times as easy to manage the children 
if you have them in a pleasant place, and they will mind 
you much more promptly if they are rather proud of you.” 
“Keep the upper hand, Sis ! ’’.said the old stage-driver, 

stopping at the door, and handing in an express pack- 

« 

age. “ Don’t you be afraid of those ornery, ill-behaved 
brats over at Cliffside. Be right up and down with 
them, and begin as you intend to go on.” 

Which being the longest speech the good old fellow 
had ever been heard to make, quite exhausted his pow- 
ers, and he chirruped to his team, cracked his whip, and 
away went the stage, with a mighty rumble and stir, over 
the hills and out of sight. 

Well, the first glimpse of the dingy Cliffside school- 
house was not very inviting. Maidie smiled to reflect 
that Mrs. Gray’s ideas of school-rooms were probably 
derived from the trim, carefully painted, swept and 


RUFUS. 


57 


scrubbed school-house of New England and New York ; 
that she did not know this ill-lighted, ill-constructed, 
barn-like place, with its backless seats and battered 
desks, its rusty stove, tin dipper hanging behind the 
door, and dictionary with half the leaves torn out. 

But for the League I’m sure I don’t see how she would 
have managed. The League came over in a body the 
Saturday before school opened ; there was a descent upon 
that room, and it found itself turned inside out before 
one could say the “ presto, change ! ” of the old fairy tales. 
Such a bevy of young people, working to such an end, 
created a positive excitement in Cliffside, and the wood- 
choppers, on their way to the forest, surveyed the pro- 
ceedings with curious eyes. 

“ I know what we can do,” suddenly cried Christine, 
who had heard of Mrs. Gray’s letter, “we can trim this 
school-house with birch bark and make it sweet with fir 
and running pine. Let’s do it. These good men will 
help us,” she whispered confidentially to Maidie. 

And they did. They were cutting splendid lissome 
birch-trees down every day, and they gave the girls all 
the silvery bark they needed, and told them where the 
running pine grew thickest, and loaded the boys with 
the aromatic evergreens, so that the school-room re- 
ceived its ornamentations. 


58 


MAIDIE' S PROBLEM. 


Came the first Monday morning. On the desk stood 
a blue pitcher, in which was a great bunch of golden- 
rod. The young teacher, who had cantered from home 
on her sure-footed gray pony, was first in her place. One 
by one the scholars appeared, all shy, some looking de- 
fiant, some happily expectant. 

“ I must make them my friends from the first mo- 
ment,” said Maidie to herself, while she sent a silent 
prayer up to God that she might make no mistakes. 

Her heart sank as the door opened and a tall, sun- 
burnt young man, long-limbed and loose-jointed, walked 
straight through the rows of little ones, and made an 
awkward bow to the bright-eyed creature who, though 
she was trembling in her shoes, kept down every out- 
ward sign of embarrassment. 

“ Miss Fletcher, I want to learn to read,” was the ab- 
rupt explanation the youth gave for his presence. “ I 
don’t know my letters even ; I've had no chance. I’ve 
got to begin with the babies in the infant class, but I’ve 
saved a little money now and I’ll do my best.” 

It was a manly thing — and so Maidie thought it — yet 
she could not feel quite easy when the great six-footer 
took his place in the ABC class. One comfort was 
that he studied so diligently he soon surpassed the rest, 
and in a very few weeks had mastered the rudiments, 


RUFUS. 


59 


was reading in the first, then in the second and third 
readers, and in the Bible, and American history, and at 
the same time took hold of spelling, arithmetic, and 
grammar with all his might. 

Who was this boy, Rufus Hitchcock ? Inquiry re- 
vealed the fact that he was a waif who in childhood had 
drifted to this mountain-land, nobody knew precisely 
how, from some great far-off town. He had lived around 
among the farmers, earning his board and clothes some- 
how, and the year before the school opened under Mai- 
die’s care he had worked in the forest with the wood- 
choppers. Nobody suspected it, but the friendless lad 
had a great hunger for learning, and a will which had been 
set on acquiring it, so that when Maidie came he seized 
the chance, and was not contented till he had gotten 
hold of the wonderful keys to all knowledge, the arts of 
reading and writing. 

“I intend,” said he, gravely, one day when Maidie was 
complimenting him on his perseverance, “ to be a college 
graduate yet.” 

“ How old are you, Rufus ? ” said Maidie. 

“ Eighteen, or thereabout,” he replied. “ Yes, I know 
it sounds like an impossibility, but nothing is impossible 
to the man who does not get in the way of God’s plans ; 
who sees his goal, and goes straight ahead to it.” 


6o 


M A [DIE'S PROBLEM. 


“ You’ll have a long pull, Rufus, but I believe you’ll 
win,” said Maidie. “ God will open the path.” 

“I can trust him,” the brave fellow answered. 

Teddy Saunders was not inactive in these days, and 
he set himself to find out how Rufus had become a 
Christian. % 

It puzzled him that a young man who had been 
brought up without any particular advantages should 
have such clear views of religion, and be so ready to 
show his colors. “ Where did he learn it ? ” cried Teddy. 

The question was still awaiting a solution when the 
opinions of some of the League — that Rufus was rather a 
muff or he would not submit to be taught like a small 
boy at a school kept by a young woman — underwent an 
entire change. Rufus proved himself something of a 
hero. 

He was studying his lesson in decimals by the blaze of 
a pine-knot fire, in the living-room of the farm-house 
where he did what he could to help, paying also a trifle 
for board, when suddenly there was a sharp cry, and 
looking up, he saw the little daughter of the house in 
flames. Standing too close to the fire, a puff of wind 
had caught her white apron, and it was ablaze in a 
breath. What should Rufus do? There was no shawl, 
quilt, or rug at hand in the simply furnished room. The 


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RUFUS. 


63 


floor was bare. He had no coat on, and the one thing 
he could do was to catch the child in his arms, wrap 
them around her, smothering the flames, and then rolling 
over and over on the floor ; he saved her life, but was 
painfully burned himself. 

Maidie, on her way home from a call which had de- 
tained her an hour after school closed, passed at the very 
instant that this had happened. The commotion in 
Farmer Gifford’s cottage caused her to stop. 

The next moment she was inside. Rufus, his face 
pale and drawn with agony, smiled bravely in answer to 
her gaze, while Mrs. Gifford, crying over her little daugh- 
ter’s singed curls and blistered hands, did nothing to 
relieve the greater sufferer. 

** Courage, Rufus ! ” said Maidie, cheerily, going to 
the cupboard which she supposed contained the family 
stores of medicine. It was as she hoped, a big bottle of 
limewater and linseed oil was in readiness for just such 
accidents, and soon bandages were applied, and the im- 
mediate aching and burning were soothed. 

“ You must come to the inn,” said Maidie, decidedly. 
“ Mrs. Gifford will have enough to do to take care of 
Lulu, and father and mother will know how to look after 
you. Come, I insist. I have our old buggy here, and 
I'll drive you.” 


6 4 


M A I DIE' S PROBLEM, 


“ I couldn’t,” said Rufus. 

“Nonsense,” answered Maidie. “You are one of my 
scholars, and you must mind me. The Paradise young 
people will all tell you that I always have my own way.” 

Rufus staid for weeks and months at Paradise Knoll. 
Mr. Fletcher was not as strong as he had been, and after 
Rufus’s recovery his ready and obliging services were in 
great demand. It became a wonder to them how they 
had ever contrived to exist without the boy. 

One evening Teddy had sauntered in. Tommy was 
roasting apples on the hearth. Mrs. Fletcher had laid 
down her knitting to read her nightly portion of the 
Bible. 

“Rufus,’’ said Teddy, “tell me when you became a 
Christian.” 

“ I’ve always been one. I lost my mother, or she lost 
me, when I was a little chap. I remember a big town 
with ships standing close as trees in the woods around 
the wharves, and tall black chimneys shooting up to the 
sky. There were church bells too, and sometimes bands 
went around playing. I remember a time when a fever 
spread fast, and people died every day, as if they were 
grass before the mower’s scythe. There was a lady, I 
think she was my mother, but I don’t know, for I was a 
wee chap, not higher than that table ; she heard me say 


RUFUS. 


65 


my prayers, and she told me, whatever came, I was God’s 
child ; not to forget that ; and to learn all I could, to be 
honest, and always to pray. I remember so much, yet it 
is vague and floats off like a cloud. I think my mother 
died. I don’t know how I came here. I must have been 
sick, or perhaps I crawled off in my loneliness and got 
on board a boat or a train.” 

“ You’ve had a hard life, Rufus.” 

“ Not very. I’ve had enough to eat, and I’ve paid my 
way.” 

“ What do you mean to be ? ” asked Mrs. Fletcher. 

The answer surprised every body. 

“ A missionary to the heathen.” 

“ Why, Rufus Hitchcock ! ” 

“Yes’m. I’ve made up my mind. I shall go through 
college first, and then I’ll prepare for some field ; India 
or Africa, or wherever the Lord needs me.” 

“Why, Rufus ! ” said Teddy again. 

Rufus did not long remain Maidie’s pupil. The League 
had been looking out for some real bit of work, and here 
it was. They had not much money individually, but 
when they combined their small savings the sum was 
enough to pay Rufus’s expenses at a good preparatory 
school at the North. 

His independence revolted at the idea of accepting 


66 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 






aid, but common sense told him that he had no right to 
refuse what the Lord sent. Besides, as Mr. Fletcher 
pointed out, he could regard whatever they did for him 
as a loan, to be returned sooner or later in genuine 
assistance to somebody else. 

So, for a while, Rufus passed out of the daily sight and 
hearing of Paradise Knoll and Cliffside. But letters came 
from him often, and he was not bent from the purpose 
of his life. Maidie, toiling on in her quiet little school, 
and being a good daughter at home, had set one ball in 
motion which should keep on rolling till it reached the 
ends of the earth. 



LINKS IN A CHAIN 


67 


CHAPTER VII. 


Links in a Chain. 

HE Giffords’ cottage, Maidie’s little brown school- 



JL house in the pines, a long, lank, ungainly lad of 
eighteen with a high ambition in his heart and no money 
in his pocket, the elegant home of a New York millionaire, 
and the library of a scholarly college professor in a town 
up among the hills of New England would severally 
seem quite widely separated. Nevertheless they were 
links in a chain. 

Rufus, with his earnest purpose, was at one end, and 
the helpers God raised up for him were at the other, and 
all were workers together with God. 

Among Maidie’s pleasantest occupations was writ- 
ing a weekly letter to Mrs. Gray, and, naturally, after 
the rescue at Mr. Gilford’s her letter was full of Rufus 
and his plans and hopes. Mrs. Gray, on the morning 
she received this epistle, was packed up and ready for a 
visit to Middletown, and before starting she had just time 
enough to run in upon a friend whose wealth was held 
in stewardship for the Lord, telling her the story, and 
leaving it as a seed-thought. 


68 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


She was not surprised when, two days after her ar- 
rival at Middletown, as she sat in the professor’s library 
reading a review, a missive from New York was put 
into her hand. 

“You had a reason,” it said, “ for telling me about 
the brave lad in Virginia. I think he is a proper candi- 
date for my educational fund, and I’ll be glad to have 
you tell me how I shall best be able to aid him in his 
efforts. I never give money to students, but I loan 
them what they need, and allow them to pay me back 
to the uttermost farthing, so that the money may go to 
somebody else in similar circumstances. Rufus, from 
what I hear, deserves help, and must have it at once. 
You say that he intends to be a missionary one of these 
days. I take it for granted that he is a church member.” 

All of which was duly sent to Maidie, and Maidie, 
writing back, explained that Rufus was not yet a pro- 
fessing Christian, though he said that he loved the 
Saviour. 

“ He hesitates to take this final step because he is 
afraid he may not be consistent, and may dishonor his 
Master,” said Maidie. “ But I feel that he is wrong, and 
we in the League are all praying that his eyes may be 
opened.” 

“For a believer to hesitate about joining the Church,” 


LINKS IN A CHAIN 


69 


Mrs. Gray replied, “ because he is afraid he may not 
walk in a consistent way, is about as reasonable as it 
would be for a soldier in time of war to refuse to wear 
his uniform and shoulder his musket. All we have to 
do, as good soldiers of Christ, is to follow our leader 
and obey our marching orders. Rufus will discover 
that the Master has bidden us confess him before men, 
and when he is convinced of that I do not think he will 
like to disobey.” 

A great many excuses are made about this very mat- 
ter, and people plead that they are not good enough — as 
if they had any goodness of their own ; and that their 
ideal is too high — as if it could be higher than Christ’s ; 
and that they can be as good Christians out of the 
Church as in — when that is weakness itself ; for who 
can be wiser than the Lord himself? The one answer is, 
“Obey the Lord’s command.” 

He has said, ,l This do in remembrance of me.” And 
I wish my young friends especially to reflect that every 
year they defer this manifest duty they make it harder 
for themselves, and increase the danger that they will 
allow old age to come finding them- in the ranks of 
the enemy. 

Jesus says, “ Whosoever is not with me is against 
me .” 


5 


72 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 

prospered, the place grew in importance, and he saw the 
chance to lay up something for his old age, and to ed- 
ucate his other children. 

The Grays, after an interval of some years, returned, 
and were struck with Maidie’s improvement. She had 
developed into a beautiful young woman : a certain shy 
dignity enhanced her charm of manner, and in her low 
tones and sweet smile there was the grace of a heart 
at leisure from itself. Still teaching her little school, 
she was the benefactor of the country-side, and few peo- 
ple were better filling their place than she. 

But Mrs. Gray was hardly satisfied : “ Maidie should 
see something else,” she ^aid to her husband. “ She must 
go to New York. I want to take her to picture gal- 
leries ; to stand with her before the “ Angelus,” and 
watch her face as she sees those peasants standing with 
bowed heads in the sunset, when the bell is calling to 
prayer. I want her to hear the grand chorals of the 
Messiah, and take her to sit at the feet of eloquent men. 
The dear child has done her duty so nobly in this sphere 
I want to widen it, and give her an outlook on a finer, 
richer life.” 

“You are not afraid of spoiling her for this, to which 
she must return ? ” asked Mr. Gray. 

“ Not in the very least. Her fitness for this proves to me 


LINKS IN A CHAIN. 


73 


her readiness for that. Maidie’s character is formed. The 
girl who lives the inward life she does will not be thrown 
out of balance by any accidental circumstances.” 

“ Can she be spared ? ” 

“ O yes ! The colonel and her mother will both be glad 
to give her up for a time. They can well spare her, and 
her friend Christine will carry on the school, which has 
grown to be a necessity in Paradise Knoll.” 

“Well, my darling wife, I am only too happy when I 
am able to forward any plan of yours. I should be glad 
if we might take the dear girl to Europe. We have no 
daughter of our own — here.” 

“ I should have been very happy had the Lord given 
me such a daughter as Maidie Fletcher,” said Mrs. 
Gray, “ but I must be content to have her for a child by 
adoption, so far as her mother will share her. If our 
own little Mabel had lived ! ” 

And she sighed deeply. 

“ Mabel is ours too, dear wife,” said the husband, 
laying his hand fenderly on hers. 


74 


MAI DIE'S PROBLEM. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The Girls’ Club. 

L IFE in a great Northern city was entirely the opposite 
of every thing the young Southern girl had known, 
and she brought to it a fullness of interest and a bright 
receptivity which were perfectly charming to her friends. 
The little cross upon her bosom gave her every-where the 
sense of being among sisters, for she saw it gleaming on 
the velvet gowns of stately middle-aged women, fastened 
around the necks of little cash-girls in the shops, and 
peeping from under the shawls of the hard-working poor. 
The badge of the beautiful order every-where spoke to 
Maidie with a welcoming word, and she realized that, even 
when she was far away and solitary, she had been in 
companionship with a host of workers who had some- 
thing to do for Jesus. 

“ Our Ten are going to entertain a club of east-side 
girls on Thursday evening,” said one of Mrs. Gray’s 
young friends to Maidie. “ Will you come with us and 
help ? Mrs. Gray says you’ve been helping along ever 
since she knew you first.” 

“ Dear Mrs. Gray ! She is too kind. I think my part 


THE GIRLS CLUB. 


75 

/ 

now must be to look ; not to help,” said Maidie. “ What 
do you do? ” 

“The girls for whom our Ten now and then provide 
a happy evening work as pressers in a hat factory, or as 
operatives in a plush box factory. They have very long 
hours, and few of them earn more than three dollars a 
week. Occasionally a very good worker makes five dol- 
lars. Out of their earnings they must clothe themselves, 
and either pay their board, or give someting to the fam- 
ily living ; generally the latter. Their homes are in stuffy 
tenements, and they have np chance to have much enjoy- 
ment such as we have in our more fortunate lives ; the 
different Tens in our church are working hand in hand 
with these girls. Some of us go one evening a week to 
the club-room, which a King’s Daughter built and fur- 
nished, that we may teach the girls to cut and make their 
clothing. Others give lessons in cooking. They have 
had mending lessons, and lessons in laundry work. But 
we do not aim to teach them any thing in the one even- 
ing a month when our Ten goes there; our object is to 

entertain them, and we’d like to have you come.” 

0 

“ I’ll be delighted,” said the girl from Paradise Knoll. 

The evening arrived. Chaperoned by Mrs. Elmore, 
the youthful president of the Thoughtful Ten, the girls 
repaired to the club-room. Already, at half-past seven. 


76 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


it was filled with an eager, wistful throng, and Maidie’s 
memory flew back to the early days of her Sunday- 
school in the pines, for there was the same soul-hunger 
in these faces that she had seen there. When people are 
famished for the bread of life the look in their eyes is 
always one of great longing. 

Maidie found herself in. the midst of a group of girls, 
who were intensely in earnest ; she had, from choice, 
asked to be seated among the girls of the club, that she 
might enjoy the evening from their stand-point. In her 
quiet gray gown, with her serene face, and hands folded 
on her lap, she attracted no attention, and the girls 
talked freely in her presence. 

“ I hope,” said one, “that Miss Weir will play the 
Moonlight Sonata. Nothing else ever carries me up to 
heaven’s gate as that does.” 

“ I can stand part of it,” said another, “ but I like the 
merry, rollicking tunes best. I like to hear Miss Granger 
sing * When the Flowing Tide Comes In ! ’ ” 

“ Hush ! Miss Eldridge is going to recite.” 

Miss Eldridge, a plump brunette in a black dress, with 
no ornament except her little cross, stepped to the mid- 
dle of the room, and began her recitation. She gave 
Browning’s “ Herv6 Riel ” and “ How They Brought 
the Good News from Ghent to Aix,” and as the listeners 


THE GIRLS' CLUB. 


77 


applauded, and called again for something else, she fin- 
ished with this little lyric : 

“ It was Jesus who was passing ! 

And the fevered mother lay 
Gasping in the lowly cottage 
As she had the livelong day. 

Flushed and spent and well-nigh gone. 

And the weary sun went down. 

44 It was Jesus who was passing ! 

And anon they bring him near. 

Wondrous was his look of kindness. 

Wondrous were his words of cheer. 
Wondrous was his touch ; it gave 
Life her parched lips to lave. 

“ It was Jesus who was passing ! 

Lo ! the blinded eyes grew clear. 

It was Jesus who was passing, 

Jesus who in love drew near. 

Jesus swept away their niglit ! 

Jesus, who restoreth sight ! 

“ It is Jesus who is passing ! 

* Hasten to his feet to-day ! 

Never did the tender Saviour 
Turn a suppliant away. 

Bring to him your wants and prayers, 

Bring to him your little cares. 

“ It is Jesus ! Don’t you see him ? 

Don’t you hear him ? low and sweet, 

’Mid the myriad sounds of Babel, 

Is the falling of his feet. 

Come to Jesus ! Come to-day ! 

Jesus Christ has passed this way ! ” 









78 


MAJDIE 'S PROBLEM . 


When the speaker’s voice had ceased, the hush was 
broken by a tremulous sob from some one in the back of 
the room. Instantly Mrs. Elmore started a hymn. 

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, 

‘ Come unto me and rest; 

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down 
Thy head upon my breast ! ’ 

I came to Jesus as I was, 

Weary, and worn, and sad, 

I found in him a resting-place, 

And he hath made me glad ! ’ 

After a little the “refreshments ” were served. The 
visiting Ten had brought cake and ice-cream. The cake 
was not bought at a baker’s but made at home, the very 
best that could be thought of — with chocolate and fruit 
and icing — and the cream, in dainty shapes, was the 
choicest New York could furnish. How the girls ate, and 
how the Ten flew about to wait on them ! 

“ Well,” said Maidie to Mrs. Gray, “ the world is much 
the same every-where. While we were at the club to- 
night I thought of Paradise Knoll, and of a time we had 
once in the little school, where ginger-snaps and lemon- 
ade formed the refreshments, and r ather played the violin, 
and I made a speech, when Teddy Saunders followed 
me in a recitation. I wonder where Teddy is now.” 

Just at this moment a maid brought in a card. 

“ Mr. Theodore Ledyard Saunders.” 


THE GIRLS' CLUB. 


79 


“ Amazing ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Gray. “ I did not know 
that our friend was in New York. But Teddy always had 
a way of popping up like a jack-in-a-box. He’ll be sur- 
prised at meeting you ! ” 

The young gentleman in faultless evening dress, with 
a flower in his button-hole, was the same merry-eyed 
Teddy, and his delight when he met Maidie was ex- 
pressed in unmeasured terms. 

“ Old Rufus’ll be no end glad ! ” he declared. “ He’s 
working hard at the seminary, as you know. The most 
gifted old fellow ! Maidie, you did a good thing when 
you started him going. He’s a perfect steam engine ! ” 

“ I didn’t start him ! ” 

“You didn’t! Then I’ve been holding a wrong opin- 
ion all this time. Anyway, you were an instrument, Miss 
Maidie ; you’ll not deny that ! ” 

“ No,” she replied, smiling. “ Now, tell me about 
yourself.’’ 

“I’m in the mill that turns out doctors,” answered 
Teddy. “ I'll be able to write M.D. after my name in a 
year or so. And I hope I’ll be an ornament to the pro- 
fession. Don’t you need a doctor at Paradise Knoll ? ” 

Teddy was himself. Maidie, who had been a trifle 
homesick, rallied under his gay talk, and went to bed 
with a light heart. 


8o 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Greater and Less. 


HE girl who began by being her mother’s right 



JL hand, finding her first duty in her home, was not 
likely to be perplexed very long by questions of greater 
and less, in the wider fields of living. It simplifies all 
our problems, and so Maidie found, to ask in any em- 
barrassment, “ What is my next step ? ” and I don’t know 
a safer method of solving difficulties than by always ask- 
ing, “ What would Jesus do ? ” “ Were he in my place, 
how would he act ? ” One may do this without irrever- 
ence, in quiet faith that light will be given in answer to 


prayer. 


The pace, even in religious matters, was a great con- 
trast in New York with the pace in Paradise Knoll. 
Meetings every night in the church, and one must choose 
which to attend, while parties, concerts, picture- 
galleries, and other social forms of entertainment equally 
legitimate put in their claims, so that instead of retiring 
almost with the birds our lassie was up till midnight for 
days together. Then on Sunday there was the mission 
school in the morning, the church service, the church 


GREA TER AND LESS. 81 

school, a special Bible-class, a young people’s prayer- 
meeting before evening service, and the service itself. 

Then somebody, hearing Maidie’s rich contralto voice, 

* 

begged her to come into the choir, if only for a very few 
weeks, adding that choir practice and rehearsals would of 
course take some time, but that it would be time well spent. 

Just as Maidie was considering this proposal, in 
walked a sweet-faced woman with gray eyes, brown 
hair, and tiny leather bag on her arm. 

“I am the visitor and collector of the Woman’s Home 

and Foreign Missionary Society in Dr. C ’s Church, 

which Mrs. Gray attends,” said this winsome lady. “We 
should like to have Mrs. Gray’s young friend join our 
junior circle, and possibly she would take a district for 
the winter.” Apologetically she proceeded. “ Being a 
visitor you will have more time on your hands than our 
stay-at-home girls, who are occupied with classes, les- 
sons, and every sort of engagement besides.” 

Maidie paused, and in the short silence, Mrs. Gray 
came to the rescue. 

“ My dear Mrs. Julian, I do not intend to let Maidie 
assume any outdoor work while she is my guest. She 
is here for rest and change, and to get, to absorb, all 
the good she can, but she is not to give out, for she has 
done nothing else all her life.” 


83 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM. 


“ One must draw the line somewhere,” said Mrs. Gray 
when the visitor had departed, “ and I won’t have you 
quite worn out. May I ask, Maidie dear, why you are 
so grave this morning? ” 

“ I’m exercised over the moralities of shopping,” said 
Maidie. “ Last evening wc spent at the Girls’ Club, you 
may remember.” 

“ Yes?” 

“ And we did what we could in the direction of en- 
tertainment for those girls, many of them half-fed, and 
pallid from lack of fresh air and warm clothing, but, as 
I’ve been thinking it over, I do not see that our visit, 
and visits like it, do much real good.” 

Just then a caller was announced. She came flying 
in, a beautiful girl in a brown jacket and gown, and a 
plumed hat shading her golden bang and her bonny 
blue eyes — a pretty figure, full of youth and health.” 

“ O ! Mrs. Gray and Maidie,” cried this brilliant creat- 
ure, the same girl who had recited at the club on the 
evening before, “ I want you to put your things on, and 
go with me to Twenty-third Street. The shops are just 
full of the loveliest goods, and it’s bargain-day. Quanti- 
ties of embroidered skirts and robes are to be had for 
almost the cost of the material, and there are some 
dressing-sacques the like of which you never saw, and 


Grea ter and less. 


83 

selling for a mere song. This certainly is the golden 
opportunity of the impecunious girl.” 

Maidie looked doubtfully at Mrs. Gray. She did not 
know whether courtesy would allow her to say what she 
thought, and yet her soul was stirred and she could not 
keep silence. 

Mrs. Gray gave her an encouraging glance. 

“ Our little Virginian is not quite sure that she ap- 
proves of bargains,” she said. “ Come, Maidie, say what 
is trembling on your lips.” 

“I don’t wish to be rude,” Maidie began, “and yet I 
don’t know how to escape from seeming abrupt and un- 
kind. Do you know, I think what working-women need 
is not charity, but justice ? Some of us are very ready 
to give to them with one hand, but are we not robbing 
them with the other? Somebody made those frilled 
petticoats and sacques that are sold for a song, and 
what was she paid for them ? Somebody’s labor was 
ill-paid that ladies in their carriages might dash up to 
the doors of the great stores, and buy armfuls of dainty 
garments at a price that is inadequate. For my part, 
I’d rather wear the plainest, coarsest things that had 
been properly paid for than avail myself of such unequal 
dealings with the poor. I can’t help feeling that in these 
-large towns many, good women, with the very best inteo- 


84 MAID/E'S PROBLEM. 

tions, are doing more harm than good. What ought 
to be done is to pay the working-girls fully for their 
labor; then let them pay in turn for whatever they re- 
ceive.” 

The pretty girl looked puzzled, but unconvinced. 

“ When you dip into political economy you carry me 
beyond my depth,” she said. “ I know that I, as a 
King’s Daughter, want to do right, yet what earthly use 
would there be in my refusing to buy these bargains ? I 
am only one obscure person. Thousands will purchase 
cheap goods, and my one bit of self-denial will be no 
more of a protest than a pebble cast into the sea.” 

“ Ten times one is ten,” said Maidie, earnestly. 

“ And ten times ten is a hundred,” added Mrs. Gray. 
“ My dear girls, if you could get the multiplying power 
of the Tens fairly set in motion in this one injustice you 
could put an end to it. * Fair work for fair wages,’ and 
no advantage taken by the thoughtless rich woman over 
her poorer sister, and the truly Christian leaven would 
permeate the whole social lump.” 

The Grays did not go to Europe, and Maidie hearing 
that she was needed at her own home returned there 
after a visit of some three weeks. She was brightened by 
contact with the wider life of the great Northern city, 
but as the trains whirled along, and after leaving Wash- 


GREA TER AND LESS. 


85 


ington, she met, at each way-side station, the signs that 
she was in a different, less exciting, more provincial and 
also more tranquil, part of the country. 

Black faces appeared frequently at the railway 
stations ; women in blue gingham gowns, with big 
shoes, and gay kerchiefs crossed over their breasts, 
brought baskets of luncheon-fried chicken, light rolls, de- 
licious sandwiches, and gingerbread. At Harper’s Ferry 
a broad-shouldered gray-haired gentleman boarded the 
train, and to her infinite satisfaction Maidie recognized 
her father. 

“ Why, father dear ! ” 

“ I came to meet my little woman,” he said, in answer 
to her exclamation. “ Maidie, all Paradise is waiting to 
greet you. Mother and Tommy and the children are 
simply wild with pleasure. We have missed you more 
than we can say.” 

The home-coming was the sweeter that the last half 
of the /way Maidie journeyed with her father’s hand held 
in hers, and that, when she grew tired, she could lay her 
head down comfortably on his shoulder. After all, there 
is nothing in life much more delightful than getting home 
after an absence, meeting the home dear ones, and, if 
you are a child of the house, finding father and mother 

all ready and glad to receive you. . 

6 


86 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM. 


CHAPTER X, 


After Many Days. 

EARS slip along so swiftly that before you are 



A aware the baby who was cooing in his cradle 
yesterday is a boy romping among his mates, a man toil- 
ing at the anvil or at the ledger, a father himself, with 
his own babies around him. To the child, a year, twelve 
long months, seems an interminable stretch of time. It is 
the reverse with us as we grow older. The years fairly rush. 

It is again summer at Paradise Knoll, and the wheat 
harvest is waving ripe and golden on the hills. The old 
inn has been changed into a great humming hive of 
girls. A girls’ school, noted far and wide through the 
South, is in successful operation there. A wing here, a 
gallery there, and the old roomy building has been trans- 
formed and beautified, till only one who looks closely can 
be sure it is the same place. 

In the church-yard there are mounds over the graves 
of Colonel and Mrs. Fletcher, who slept at last, after 
a long period of usefulness. The village has grown, 
and a railroad, having tunneled or climbed the mount- 
ains, has brought the great world nearer, so that no 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 


87 


longer the incoming tourist must take his passage in the 
rumbling old coach, so respectable and comfortable in 
its day. Maidie is no longer a resident here. The school, 
an outgrowth of the little one over which she once pre- 
sided, is in the charge of Rev. and Mrs. Theodore Saun- 
ders. Our old friend Teddy is very popular with his pupils, 
and his wife, who was once little Lucy Fletcher, leads the 
girls in that path which all true women should tread. 
There is no flourish of trumpets afbout the school. It does 
its work very quietly, but the women who go from its class 
rooms will be faithful wives, tender mothers, or gentle 
Christian friends and workers, if they do not choose to 
marry. 

In the halls and dormitories there is a great flutter 
of anticipation, and gay groups are seen in conference on 
the June morning when Miss Fletcher, a missionary from 
India, returned for a year’s rest in her native land, is to 
appear again in her old home, and tell the girls some- 
thing about her work. This circumstance in itself does 
not account for the excitement which every-where shows 
under the eager faces, in the ripples of laughter, and in 
the earnest low-toned talk. 

“ It will be splendid, having a wedding here ! " says 
Mary Lucas, whose mother was the Christine Evelett of 
the League in olden days. 


83 


MAID IE'S PROBLEM . 


“ It would be more interesting if the bride were 
young,” says another bright-eyed girl, to whom any 
body over twenty-five is middle aged, and who regards 
thirty as almost antique. 

“ They have known each other for half their lives. 
And she taught him to read. It is most romantic; like 
an affair in a story-book,” cries another. 

“ Mr. Hitchcock is a fine scholar, an elegant man, a suc- 
cessful minister and missionary. What more can you 
want?” added another still. “Yet he was once a poor 
little homeless boy, and he had a hard struggle to get 
the rudiments of an education. Paradise Knoll was his 
starting-point, and he has always said, so mamma has 
heard, that if ever Miss Maidie would marry him the 
wedding should take place here. I am glad that it is to 
be in this half-year, for next I’ll be at home, and I like 
to assist in such an event.” 

“You have no idea, girls,’’ said one of the teachers, 
approaching the group, “ how much Paradise Knoll owes 
to Maidie Fletcher. Why, years ago, there were saloons 
in the village, and little drinking-places in the hills, where 
hundreds of young men were ruined. The settlement at 
Cliffside was a perfect hot-bed of ignorance and crime. 
It is surprising how things have improved. I’m glad that 
Maidie is to be married in the very church which was 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 89 

built by the efforts of her friends, and by those whom they 
interested.” 

Rufus Hitchcock had been able, under God, to carry 
out his plans. His work had been in Calcutta and 
Maidie’s in Madras, for, after her parents’ death, and the 
growing up of her brothers and sisters, she had been free 
to undertake the work of teaching in a Hindu girls’ 
school. The two had not met nor corresponded, and it 
was only by what men call, accident, though it is really by 
God’s providence, that Rufus and Maidie quite unexpect- 
edly had been presented to one another in Philadelphia, - 
at a great missionary meeting. She had sat in the aud- 
ience listening to his impassioned plea for help in the 
field, so wide, so fruitful, so neglected ; and he had caught 
a vision of her face as if it were the face of an angel. 
Afterward, when the two clasped hands, he felt that he 
could never give her up, and so successfully did he urge 
his cause that Maidie at last gave her consent. 

The girls made a perfect bower of the church on the 
the day of the wedding. Flowers wreathed about pillars, 
and hung in festoons wherever the nimble fingers could 
hang them. A bell of lilies and roses wafted fragrance 
over the bride’s head, and the chancel was carpeted with 
bloom. 

Two very old gentlemen and one elderly lady had 


9 o 


MAIDIE'S PROBLEM . 


come from a great distance to be present on the happy 
occasion. It was whispered about among the school-girls 
that Mr. Hildreth, one of these men, an old friend of Miss 
Maidie’s father, intended to leave her his fortune, and 
“if he does, she’ll spend it in zenana work!” affirmed 
one young lady, with an assent of regret. 

“ It is probably only good-natured gossip,” said a 
friendly teacher, “ but, Miss Marian, if you had the faint- 
est notion of what zenana life is, how vacant, how aim- 
less, how dreary, you would pray that a dozen good men 
would leave fortunes to enable Christian women to carry 
forward the work which will lift their sisters in India 
into a brighter, purer day.” 

Mrs. Gray, though her hair was like the drifted snow, 
and her step had grown feeble, was as eager and intense 
as ever in her friendships, and as strenuous in whatever 
she undertook. Always fragile, she was, at seventy-five, 
hardly so feeble as at forty, and she gave the crowning 
touch to Maidie’s wedding-day, when she gave her the 
last kiss on her lips as Maidie Fletcher, in the name of 
the dear mother in heaven. 

There was no wedding-march, but just as the little 
procession, walking ffom the seminary to the church, 
set out on its way, a choir of young people began to 
sing: 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 


91 


“ Blessings on the bride to-day ! 

Bloom and perfume strew her way ! 

Sweetest wishes her attend ! 

Christ her onward steps defend ! 

“ Wheresoever she shall rest, 

There be those she loveth best ; 

Wheresoever be her home, 

There may those she loveth come ! 

“ Blessings on the happy bride ; 

Peace and love with her abide ; 

Heaven look down to give her cheer, 

So we pray who hold her dear.” 

The words, sung very softly, came to an end just as 
bride and groom stood at the altar before the minister. 
After the simple ceremony, and while the congratulations 
were being offered, one of the congregation, a plain 
farmer, confided to his wife that, 

“Thet air chune was very pretty, but it was kind o’ 
one-sided. Not a word in it about the husband, and he’s 
a fine appearing man.” 

“ O John ! ” said the wife, “ that's all you know. The 
bride is the person who’s talked about on the wedding- 
day. Nobody else is of any account !.” 

“ She’s a true woman ! If ever I have a daughter, may 
she be like Maidie Fletcher,” said the pastor’s wife. 

If this little story has any message for you, my dear 
girl readers, it is summed up in this one sentence. Try, 
each of you, God helping her, to be a true woman ! 





















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ONE OF THEMSELVES 







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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

Pagb 

The Girl with No Talent gg 

f 

CHAPTER II. 

Mother’s Help 107 

CHAPTER III. 

Gaining an Inch 115 

CHAPTER IV. 

Holding the Copy Close 123 

CHAPTER V. 

The Judge’s Idea 132 

CHAPTER VI. 

The One Talent Ten 142 




ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


CHAPTER I. 


The Girl With No Talent, 


HREE girls lingered in Cora Meredith's charm- 



-1- ing parlors after the rest of their Ten had gone 
home from a meeting. Dorothy Gay, Linda Creamer, 
and Nell King were often called the Three Graces 
by their friends, who laughingly said that the three girls 
ought to have been named Faith, Hope, and ^Charity. 
But not in the order I have given would the pretty 
names have been appropriate, for Nell was Faith ; 
Linda, Hope ; and Dorothy, Charity personified. 

Cora was bustling about — setting the room in its 
usual order, putting away the work which the girls had 
left in her care— and now and then pausing to hear 
snatches of the conversation which the trio were carry- 
ing on in animated tones. 

“ I tell you, Linda,” said Dorothy, wistfully, “ I 
haven’t a single decided talent in the world. I often 
think Fm not even equal to the man with one talent in 


IOO 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


the parable. I haven’t so much as miserable half 
talent.” 

“For shame, Dorothy!” said Nell, in her eager 
way ; “ when every body loves you so dearly.” 

“ O, that’s only because every body is so sweet, dear.” 

“ Nonsense, Dorothy Gay. People love those who 
are lovable. I call it more than a talent to win hearts 
by one’s mere presence ; to please all sorts of men and 
women, from gruff Mr. Ogden to frivolous Jack Peel, 
from old Aunty Griggson to little Beth Jones ; to 
light up a room and cause a ripple of pleasure as you 
do wherever you come, darling ” — kissing her with 
girlish enthusiasm. 

“But,” said Dorothy, gently persistent, “you won’t 
understand me. Nell, for instance, is a born artist. 
She paints on velvet and china, illustrates books, makes 
pretty sketches, does a hundred quaint and beautiful 
things. Linda’s playing and singing are exquisite, 
and she consecrates her rare gift to the Master. No- 
body can be cold and hard where Linda is singing ; 
she has an angel’s dower. I heard Dr. Elmendorf say 
so only yesterday. Cora writes poetry and stories, and 
finds hundreds to read them. Every girl in our Ten, 
except poor little me, has a specialty of some kind. I 
am the only perfectly humdrum person in the set,” 


THE GIRL WITH NO TALENT. ioi 

Cora Meredith laid her hand softly on Dorothy’s 
plump shoulder. 

“ Don’t be distressed, dear,” she said. 44 There is a 
good deal of work which can be done by girls who, like 
yourself, confess to having no talent in particular. The 
world would not get on comfortably without the help of 
the quiet, common-sense workers who fill up the chinks.” 

Dorothy thought of Cora’s words that night as she 
was preparing for bed. Before her lay a letter from 
her Sunday-school teacher, asking her to undertake the 
" Preston girls ” for the next six months. I must explain 
that Mrs. Howell’s class was a very large one, and 
composed of girls from different social ranks and worldly 
conditions. Mrs. Howell had a theory, which k she had 
successfully put into practice, with regard to Sunday- 
school work. For mission schools, as such, she did not 
specially care, but she thought that what is usually con- 
sidered the mission-school element should be incorpo- 
rated with the ordinary church schools, the caste-line 
being blotted out and entirely ignored. In her class all 
met on an equal footing, and varieties of the external 
order, such as dress and etiquette, were not openly 
noticed. But all the time the good teacher was watch- 
ing, seeing where she could sow the seed of the better 
life, trying to bring together girls who could be mutually 


102 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


helpful. Within the last year it had been Mrs. Howell’s 
custom quietly to give certain girls in charge of certain 
others, who should endeavor to brighten and beautify 
their lives, give them a wider outlook, and assist 
them in little ways which would not hurt their self- 
respect. 

Molly and Trudy Preston were the two girls from 
whom in the whole circle Dorothy Gay felt the most 
distinct repulsion. They were not pretty, and Dorothy 
had a love of beauty which was instinctive. Worse than 
that, they were not clean. Their skins had the grimy 
look which announces that the bath is infrequent and 
soap seldom used. An actual rim of dirt accentuated 
the line of Molly Preston’s bangs, and a similar neg- 
lected look was visible in Trudy’s ears. Worse than the 
dirt which disfigured these girls was the tawdry charac- 
ter of their gowns ; cheap material in the extreme of the 
prevailing fashion, with ends and tags, and a general 
impression of loudness and show, made the appearance 
of the Prestons not quite respectable. Then their half- 
defiant, half-familiar, and generally swaggering manner 
was to the last degree disagreeable. 

“ So I am to ‘ undertake the Prestons,’ ” said Dorothy 
to herself, with a little shudder, but without a thought of 
declining. Mrs. Howell’s scholars were always ready to 


THE GIRL WITH NO TALENT. 103 

attempt at least whatever their leader advised. Were 
they not pledged to work “ in His name ? ” 

“ I wonder what I am to do for them ? ” was her next 
thought. And then, opening her little volume of Dew- 
drops , she found the text for the day, taken from 2 Sam. 
24. 24: 

“ Neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord my 
God of that which doth cost me nothing.” 

Under the text there was a little prayer which Dorothy 
read with the Prestons in her mind, for, having resolved 
to “undertake them,” she began the work then and there 
on her knees. This was the prayer: 

“ Keep me, Lord, now and at all times. Never let me 
think, whatever age or station I attain, that I am strong 
enough to maintain the combat without thee. Nor ever 
let me imagine myself so weak that thou canst not 
support me ! May I be in all things kept by thee, for 
my Saviour’s sake. Amen.” 

Here was a secret of strength ; a true inspiration. 

The next day at five o’clock, Dorothy, a pretty little 
figure in her neat brown walking-dress, with jacket and 
hat, gloves and boots all trim and unobtrusive, set out to 
call on the two for whom she already felt responsible. 
They were straw-sewers and worked at home. So much 

she knew. 

7 


104 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


Her heart beat fast as she arrived at their flat ; up four 
flights in a decent tenement-house, with nothing squalid 
or dirty in the oil-cloth covered halls and stairs, though, 
on the other hand, the contrast between the bare plain- 
ness of this home and the elegance and luxury of Dor- 
othy’s own was very marked. Already Dorothy had 
learned how sensitive is the pride of the poor, how quick 
are the working classes to resent patronage, and she felt 
a little doubt as to her reception. She put out a little 
gloved hand and knocked timidly. 

The door was opened an inch or so, and a hard- 
featured, gray-haired woman, with sleeves rolled to the 
elbow and a blue-checked apron falling to her feet, 
looked grimly out. 

“ May I see Molly and Trudy, please? ” 

“ No, you may not. The girls are busy, and have no 
time to waste. Go about your business ! ” And the door 
was slammed in her face. 

This was a novel experience for Judge Gay’s daughter. 
She stood irresolutely a moment or two, hearing a sound 
of voices in agitated discussion within, succeeded by 
silence and not by a re-opening of the door. Turning, 
she was going slowly down when a motherly woman on 
the next landing accosted her kindly. 

“ Thim Preston girls is to be pitied, miss. Their 


THE GIRL WITH NO TALENT \ 


105 


mother’s that contentious there’s no living with her, 
especially when she’s out of sorts." 

Dorothy made no reply except by a bow. She went 
straight to Mrs. Howell, and, seated on a hassock at 
that lady’s feet, related her first experience in “ under- 
taking the Prestons.” 

“ I haven’t even gained an entrance,” she said. “ Dear 
Mrs. Howell, do you want me to try again ? ” 

“Of course I do,” said that indefatigable woman. 
“ What you tell me makes me more than ever sorry for 
those poor girls, and it explains something as well. I 
understand better than I did why they are always on 
the defensive. They have to be, with such a mother. 
But — like all mothers — Mrs. Preston has her good points, 
no doubt, if we can only find them. Perhaps it’s as 
well, my dear, that you should have had this rebuff ; it 
will show you that even in benefiting others perseverance 
is necessary, and it will set you and me to thinking what 
to do next.” 

“ Why do those girls never attend any of the church 
sociables ? ” asked Dorothy. “ One of the reasons we 
have church sociables is that just such people may make 
acquaintances.” t 

“ I’m afraid, dear, it is because such people do not 
feel at home when they venture among us that they are 


ro6 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


shy of our sociables. They do not want to be conde- 
scended to, nor treated as though we were better than 
they are ; yet when they do accept one of our general 
invitations they are conscious of being aliens. Dorothy, 
I want those girls lifted to a higher plane. I want to 
give them a nobler ideal, to advance their interests, and 
you, better than Nell, or Linda, or Cora Meredith, can 
help in this, for you have no one pursuit which cuts a 
deep swath into your time. You can go to those Pres- 
tons and get at them by being, in a sense, one of them- 
selves. Do you catch my meaning, dear ? ” 

“ I fervently hope,” said Dorothy, with a shrug, “ that 
I may teach them to be clean and to mend their stock- 
ings and gloves. I shudder at dirt and rags.” 

“ But these girls have been used to both. They will 
do better if you will show them how,” said Mrs. Howell, 
cheerily. “ But if you would succeed you must learn to 
love them, dear.” 



MOTHER'S HELP. 


107 


CHAPTER II. 

Mother’s Help. 

M RS. GAY, Dorothy’s mother, was the sort of 
sweet, jolly, blessed mother who is always a 
girl’s best friend. She and her daughter were like sis- 
ters in their friendly confiding one in the other. When 
she heard of Dorothy’s repulse she thought that very 
likely some help from herself might be necessary to let 
her little Red Riding Hood enter the barred door with- 
out incurring the danger of being eaten up by the wolf. 
What are mothers good for if not to smooth the way 
for daughters’ feet ? 

So, bright and early one morning, Mrs. Gay sent a 
note to Mrs. Preston. It was written on thick cream- 
laid paper with a monogram on the corner, it had a faint 
perfume of heliotrope, it was sealed with thick splashy 
wax, and altogether was a very “ stylish ” looking affair. 
Furthermore, the bearer of the note was no less a per- 
sonage than Robert, Mrs. Gay’s elderly and dignified 
coachman, who was directed to wait for an answer. 
Not one of these details was in the least accidental — 
Mrs. Gay knew their value. 


io8 


ONE OF THEMSEL VES. 


Taking the missive gingerly between a wet finger and 
thumb Mrs. Preston dried her hands and sat down to 
read it. She was prepared to say “No - ’ to whatever it 
requested, but Roberts portly presence and air of expect- 
ancy prevented her from speaking, and the contents of 
the note were so amazing that her first opposition died 
upon her lips. Who was this strange lady who had 
divined the passionate love for God’s beautiful flowers 
which, in Mrs. Preston’s heart, had survived change and 
time and sordid poverty ? Or had the lady only guessed 
it ? Any way the effect was the same, and almost mar- 
velous. 

“ My daughter Dorothy,” the note ran, “ is a member 
of the same class in Sunday-school with your girls, and 
has mentioned them to me. We desire to become better 
acquainted with Molly and Trudy, and Dorothy asks your 
permission to call on them to-day. She will bring you 
some primroses and begonias, which need a sunny win- 
dow. Will you see what you can do with them ? I 
have asked a half dozen of my friends to take flowers 
from me, tend them for a few months, and then help me 
in getting up a plant show for the benefit of the orphan 
asylum. Please oblige me in this matter.” The note 
was signed “ Mary Barclay Gay.” 

“ Them Gays is real quality, an’ no mistake,” said Mrs. 


MOTHER'S HELP. 


109 


Preston, reflectively, “and old Squire Barclay must ha’ 
been her father, and he was the real blue blood. Well, 
lemme see,” becoming suddenly aware of Robert, a 
statue in blue cloth and brass buttons, standing patient 
as fate in the shadow of the door-way. “ O ! tell her. 
Yes, certainly. The young lady may come.” 

Robert had a private laugh at the air of condescension 
with which this was said. 

“ Mother,” gasped Molly, “ it’s the same girl you 
wouldn’t let in yesterday ! ” 

“ An’ what has that to do with it, Miss Pert ? If I 
choose to keep strangers out one day am I obliged to 
shut out folks with letters of introduction next mornin’ ? 
You be quiet, Molly.” 

Trudy was the next to speak. 

“ A sunny window,. Mrs. Gay says. I s’pose we could 
fill the bill if our windows was washed, but they’re so 
thick with dust you can’t see through them.” 

“ That’s a fact,” said Mrs. Preston. “ I’ll wash win- 
dows this morning ; I might as well do it fust as last.” 

Dorothy’s basket, borne by Robert, who this time 
escorted her, was a mass of lovely bloom and verdure. 
As she unpacked its treasures and saw the rapt ecstatic 
look which transformed the plain, hard-lined face of the 
woman whose one softness was to “ dote on flowers,” 


no 


ONE OF THEMSELVES, 


she wondered, more than ever, at her mother’s gracious 
tact. 

Meanwhile Robert was walking about just around the 
corner of the street below, keeping an eye as he saun- 
tered to and fro on the house where his young mistress 
lingered. He had the nature of a watch-dog where she 
was in question. But he was not visible to them, and 
Dorothy made acquaintance with the girls. 

The two kept on with their straw-sewing, Molly 
explaining that it was an order and had to be 
done by nightfall, and then, waxing confidential, Trudy 
said, 

“ We’re working awfully hard now to get us black silks 
for Easter. Trimmed with lace and jet, you know. 
They’ll cost sixty dollars apiece : but you might as well 
be out of the world as out of the fashion, and we can 
pay for them on the installment plan if we like. Lots 
of girls do.” 

“ But,” said Dorothy, timidly, “ I have heard that the 
trouble in that plan is that you may have paid a half 
dozen installments and then fail in having one ready and 
lose what you’re buying, after all.” 

“ In furniture, perhaps,” said Molly, laughing, “ but 
not in gowns, for the gown would be half worn out, and 
what good would it be to take that back ? I wish I 


MOTHER'S HELP. 


hi 


could pay cash clown for every thing, but I can’t, and a 
black silk dress I'm bound to have.” 

“ Yes,” said her sister," and an Easter bonnet trimmed 
with real lace and daffodils.” 

“ Why do you care for such expensive things ? ” asked 
Dorothy. 

‘‘Because,” was the quick reply, “we’re as good as 
the next one, and we’re bound to show it, or else we 
can stay at home. We’re not goin’ to sit in Mrs. 
Howell’s class and be outdone by any body. So, there ! 
and if we work hard we’ve a right to have nice 
clothes.” 

“Tell your mother,” interrupted Mrs. Preston, “ I’ve 
not had any thing to please me as them posies .have in 
years and years. Not since I was a girl on my father’s 
farm. I’ll take care of them, you bet ! ” 

Linda and Nell were waiting for Dorothy when she 
reached home. They had established themselves in her 
pretty chamber. Nell was in her favorite attitude on the 
white fur rug in front of the fire that burned cheerily on 
the hearth. Linda was lost in a Sleepy Hollow chair. 
As Dorothy entered, the charm, the peace, the fullness 
of comfort, as compared with the home she had left, 
struck into her consciousness. How much she had, how 
little the others ! 


1 12 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


“ Girls,” she said, “ we’ve got one thing before us. 
We’ve got to reconstruct our dress.” 

“ I hope, Dorothy,” said Nell, “ that you’re not going 
in for Mother Hubbards, and that sort of thing. Pray 
don’t ! ” 

“ I’ve been to the Prestons’,” was Dorothy’s reply, 
“and I have had a revelation. Those girls are wearing 
themselves out sewing like automatons from morning to 
night, and living, I suppose, mainly on baker’s bread and 
tea, and all for what, do you suppose? To buy them- 
selves black silks trimmed with jet for Easter. And the 
dirt on their faces ! O something must be done ! ” 

“ What do you propose, dear ? ” asked Linda, hum- 
ming a tune under her breath. 

“ I propose that we girls, whose parents can afford to 
let us wear whatever we please that is elegant and costly, 
shall forego the merely selfish pleasure of fine dressing 
at church and Sunday-school hereafter. Molly Preston 
said ‘one might as well be out of the world as out of the 
fashion.’ Let us set the fashion of plain dress for public 
places in this town, at least.” 

“ How can we ? ” queried Nell. “ Our mothers may 
object if we make guys of ourselves.” 

“ Ah ! but that is what we do not intend doing. Cheap 
wools and calicoes may be as tastefully made as the 


MOTHER'S HELP. 


ii3 

most costly satins and silks, may fit as exquisitely, and 
our dainty and costly attire may be reserved for occa- 
sions when display will be a temptation to nobody. For 
the sake of these, and hundreds like them, who are 
spending every penny they can obtain for fine clothes, 
let us bring about a change. If rich girls made up 
their minds and acted together it could be done.” 

“ What shall we wear to Sunday-school to-morrow ? ” 
inquired practical Nell, stifling a sigh. For was there not 
in her wardrobe at home a claret-colored costume, velvet 
trimmed, with shifting lights and shades, in which the 
girl looked, and knew that she looked, like a veritable 
little princess ? Hadn’t she dreamed all the week of 
the pleasure she would have in wearing this where Ned 
Raymond's eyes would behold its gorgeousness ? 

Butcher fingers strayed to the silver cross pendent from 
her brooch. Her lips murmured softly “ In His Name.” 
She could make this small sacrifice. 

Dorothy spoke firmly. 

“ I shall wear my old black serge. It’s the only plain 
dress I have in perfect order.” 

“ Well,” said Nell, “ then look for ‘yours devotedly’ in 
her present habit of sober gray. Girls, if you knew how 
hard it will be to leave my lovely claret cashmere in the 
closet you’d appreciate the effort I mean to make.” 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


114 

Dorothy thought of her text. Did it mean this ? such 
little things, such trifles ? Why not ? Even the self- 
denial involved in giving up a chance to display one’s 
person in brave attire may be accepted of Him who sees 
the motive of every act. This is not an offering to the 
Lord of that which costs nothing to the offerer. 

“ I,” said the third of the trio, “will vie with you in 
modest raiment on my next public appearance at Sunday- 
school. I will array myself in a dull garb of unostenta- 
tious brown ; and so far as we three can influence our 
set we’ll put black silk and jet embroidery out of style, 
for the benefit of the Prestons and their set.” 

“ But O, girls,” pleaded Dorothy, “ for pity’s sake don’t 
look conscious ; don't act as if we were doing this on 
purpose. It would be fatal to success if they thought we 
were attitudinizing.” 

44 Trust us to do the thing as it should be done,” said 
Linda and Nell. 



' GAINING AN INCH. 


ii5 


CHAPTER III. 

Gaining an Inch. 

W HEN Dorothy “undertook” the Prestons she 
asked herself whether or not she could invite 
them, as she did her friends, into that sanctuary of re- 
pose, her own little room. It had seemed to her impos- 
sible ever to do so, the air of her chamber was so 
refined, so lovely were all the appointments. 

“Was it necessary,” she wondered, “to be on terms 
of intimacy with people who had nothing in common 
with her — no knowledge of her world, no acquaintance 
with the books which were her daily bread ? ” 

Day by day she asked her own soul this question. To 
reach down to the Prestons was an easy matter, re- 
garded in one light ; she could give them flowers 
and papers and drives if she chose ; could furnish 
pleasant evening entertainments for them at which 
one girl of her own circle would sing, another play, 
another read. But though Dorothy did this, and 
did it heartily, she felt somehow that she was not 
reaching her proteges as she desired to. They were 
still afar off. 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


116 

To Cora Meredith she made her complaint, grieving 
that she could report no headway. 

“ They accept whatever I offer, and indeed Molly 
Preston is a perfect sponge, so far as absorbing entertain- 
ments and catching one’s tone are concerned ; but really^ 
I am no better off, as to gaining their confidence, than I 
was at first. And I just can’t and won’t ask those girls 
to come to my home in the same free way that Nell and 
Linda do. Why, Cora, I’d have to air the rooms after 
they’d gone. I have to walk a square or two out of 
my way always to get rid of the odor of onions, corned- 
beef, cabbage, and such miscellaneous stuff after I’ve 
been to see the Prestons. Yet, Cora, they are certainly 
cleaner — house and family both.” 

Cora shook her head gravely. 

“ Dorothy, dear, I wouldn’t ask them to visit me, if I 
were you, while I had that sort of protest in my heart. 
It wouldn’t be a genuine invitation. But you’ll have to 
be one of themselves, as you haven’t been yet, before 
you’ll do them any permanent good. You must put 
your heart into it, dear.” 

“And the discouraging part, Cora,” affirmed Dorothy, 
blushing, “ is that though Linda and Nell and ever so 
many of us have become as much like Sisters of Charity 
as possible in our attire it makes no perceptible impres- 


GAINING AN INCH. 


117 

sion on the Prestons. They wear as many furbelows as 
ever, they prink and fuss as much ; they are as evidently 
afraid of water and soap. Molly has been buying a black 
silk and Trudy is going to, and our example goes for 
nothing. But Mrs. Howell says I must be contented to 
work and await results/' 

“ I was afraid you’d get discouraged, my darling.” 

Cora gazed meditatively on an engraving which hung 
on the wall, an illustration of Lowell’s Sir Launfal. 
Under the picture was the legend, and she recited, sotto 
voce, 

“ Who gives himself with his alms feeds three : 

Himself, his sorrowing neighbor, and Me.” 

“You have yet to give yourself, my sweetest Dorothy,” 
said Cora. 

“ But what ought I to do now ? ” 

“ Wait until you are led. Do nothing whatever that is 
insincere. A girl’s work for Jesus should be genuine. 
At present,” pursued Cora, “ I cannot see that you are 
under obligations to open your home any more freely 
to the Prestons than you are now doing. If special 
circumstances arise the way will be made plain above 
all. Wait till you are heart-ready.” 

Mrs. Howell met Dorothy a few days after this talk 
with a face full of concern. 


IIS ONE OF THEMSELVES. 

“ My dear,” she said, “ I have two perplexities. One 
is the chronic puzzle : What to do with the dozen or so 
girls in my class who ought to be leading safe, happy, 
easy lives in Christian homes as helpers — servants, if 
you please — but who shrink from the idea of service as 
demeaning; the other how to keep Molly Preston from 
making a wreck of her life by marrying when she has 
no idea of managing a home. You know Molly is in 
love ? ” 

Dorothy’s brown eyes opened widely in surprise. 

“ Indeed I did not ! ” 

“And, my dear, she couldn’t do worse than choose 
as she is doing — a youth who keeps no Sabbath, who is 
a lounger around saloons, who is calculated to make her 
miserable. O, Dorothy,” and the teacher’s voice trem- 
bled, “ I had such hopes when you joined forces with 
me ; but neither of us has found the key.” 

“ I’m afraid I haven’t prayed enough,” said Dorothy. 
“ Nor been loving enough, either.” 

“ Well, let us pray now, and the dear Lord may direct 
us. He is all love.” 

It seemed to Dorothy, when next she sat opposite 
Molly Preston in Sunday-school, that the latter’s mien 
was harder, the black eyes bolder than ever. Both sis- 
ters were resplendent in finery, both were aggressive in 


GAINING AN INCH. 


119 

their bearing, and determined to show to all on-lookers 
that they were the equals of any body, let her be who 
she might. A more disagreeable type does not exist, 
but it is to be found in many an American city and 
town. 

Dorothy prayed for the girls, and sooner than she 
anticipated the key which had so baffled them was put 
into her hands and those of Mrs. Howell. And as she 
prayed she began to love, and no longer stood apart in 
feeling. 

“ Please, miss,” sad the waitress, tapping at the 
drawing-room door, one evening when the judge had a 
dinner-party, “ there’s a woman in the hall who insists 
that she must see yourself. I tried to put her off and 
to get her to leave a message, but it was of no use. 
Insist on coming in she would, and she says she’ll 
wait.” 

Dorothy slipped away from the guests she was enter- 
taining, and in her clinging white dress, with flowers at 
her belt and the little cross at her throat, appeared in 
the hall to meet the eager, anxious face of Mrs. Preston. 

“ Molly’s sick ! ” she exclaimed. “ She’s all run down. 
And she’s been askin’ for you— askin’, askin’ for hours. 
And the doctor says it’s not contagious, and please, Miss 

Dorothy, when will you come ? ” 

8 


120 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


“ I will be there early to-morrow morning, Mrs. Pres- 
ton ; but let me send Molly some grapes and an orange, 
so that she’ll know I’m thinking of her.” 

The mother’s face fell. She had come against her will, 
and now that she sat in the broad hall with its tesselated 
floor, on which lay here and there thick, warm rugs, soft 
to the foot and pleasing to the eye, as she saw the nod- 
ding ferns and green palms on the landings of the stair- 
way, and observed on every side the evidences of taste, 
wealth, and splendor, her heart grew hot and rebellious. 
From the drawing-room came a subdued murmur of 
voices and little gushes of well-bred laughter, and 
presently the notes of the piano, silvery sweet, floated 
out from under the fingers of a skilled performer. 

“ Thank you, Miss Gay. Keep your grapes. My girl 
can do without them. You belong to one world and she 
to another, and I was a fool for cornin’ to you.” 

And drawing her shawl closely around her, stepping 
firmly, with her head high and her eyes blazing, the 
woman strode forth into the night. 

Dorothy, her eyes dim and her lips quivering, could 
not immediately return to her guests. She sought her 
own room and struggled for calmness — found it by look- 
ing upward. A whispered word of prayer, a thought of 
the divine Friend who can overcome all difficulties if we 


GAINING AN INCH. 


121 


ask him in faith, and Dorothy went to her parlor to do 
her duty there until her father’s friends took leave. 

It was still early when the last guests said good-night, 
and then, just as she had always done since her baby- 
hood, the girl sat down by her mother, and to that best 
confidante told the story of her day. When she had 
finished Mrs. Gay said, glancing at the bronze clock on 
the library mantel, 

“I think I will go with you, dear, and we will visit 
Molly before we sleep. I can understand something of 
the mother’s unreasonable, behavior, and we can afford 
to overlook it. The thing we have to do is to make poor 
Molly comfortable if we possibly can.” 

It took but a few moments for mother and daughter 
to exchange their dinner-gowns for dark wools fit for the 
street, and heavy cloth ulsters and hoods. Judge Gay 
had some work in his study which he said would keep 
him up until midnight, so Robert was taken along as 
escort and protector, and soon after Molly, fretted and 
disappointed, had listened to her mother's recital of her 
call and its conclusion, and, turning her head upon the 
hard pillow, had uttered a wailing cry of, 

“ There now ! you’ve offended her, and she’ll never 
come any more,” the ministering angels walked into the 


room. 


122 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


What struck Dorothy then and on subsequent days 
was the lack of simple, attainable comforts in Molly’s 
home. A white muslin night-dress costs necessarily 
only a few cents, if one has a needle-woman’s facility 
and can make it for herself ; but Molly and Trudy had 
spent every penny they could get for outside garments 
— silk, satin, jet, flowers, kid gloves, and other articles 
which they fancied they must have^to put them on a par 
with their companions or to make them “ look like other 
people.” They literally had not a nightgown of any de- 
scription ; their stockings were a mass of holes ; of 
flannel skirts and other underwear there was an appall- 
ing absence. None of the things which were to Dorothy 
toilet essentials were to be seen in Molly’s room, but on 
the shelf which did duty as dressing-case, bureau, and 
wardrobe for both girls, was a row of tiny scent-bottles 
— musk, jockey club, patchouli, stephanotis — showing 
whence had come the vulgarity of perfume which more 
than once had sent Dorothy gasping from their neigh- 
borhood on Sunday that she might get a breath of fresh 
air. As for the family washing, it was forever doing and 
never done. 


HOLDING THE COP Y CLOSE . 


123 


CHAPTER IV. 

Holding the Copy Close. 

^ T T NLESS I can manage to present to those people 
a higher ideal,” said Dorothy to Cora, “ I may 
as well give up and let somebody else try. I see where 
the trouble is — they are not following a good ex- 
ample.” 

“When I was a little tot,” Cora answered, looking 
up from the dainty embroidery which lay upon her lap, 
“ I used to be the despair of my teachers because I 
wrote so badly. I would blot the clean page, make 
pot-hooks instead of letters, and do ever so many things 
which brought me bad marks instead of good. But 
one day my writing-master said to me, ‘ Cora, I notice 
that the first two or three lines on your page are always 
very well done ; you do pretty well while the copy is 
close to you. I am going to set you three or four copies 
on the page after this, and if you look at them carefully I 
think you’ll improve.’ That was all. I tell it to you 
because in this, dear child, there is a parable.” 

“ You mean — ” 

“ That your copy is too far away, Dorothy. You need 


124 ONE OF THEMSELVES. 

to set it oftener and more closely. Somehow you must 
make yourself more really one of themselves if you’re 
going to change the Prestons. By the bye, did I or did 
I not see the mother at church with Trudy yesterday ?” 

“You did, my dear; and, what is more, she remained 
to the inquiry meeting. I suppose because Trudy want- 
ed to stay and begged her mother to do so too. I never 
was more surprised in my life, and yet I ought not to 
have been, for I had been praying for that very thing to 
come to pass.” 

“ Our little measure of faith must grieve the Master,” 
said Cora Meredith. “ Nothing hurts me like the having 
one of my friends doubt what I promise, and behave as 
though my word were of no account in my sight ; so how 
must it be with Jesus ? ” 

“ I thought of that. But tell me, Cora, how can I 
take my copy nearer ? ” 

Then the two heads were bent together over the work, 
and the talk went on in low, earnest tones. 

Molly Preston was much better. Beef-tea and beef- 
steak, rest, and the new ideas of ventilation which had 
come to the flat in the wake of Dorothy Gay were 
restoring light to her eyes and color to her cheeks. 
There was an interval in the straw-sewing work, and 
Trudy and Molly were probably much worried, for they 


HOLDING THE COPY CLOSE. 125 

had saved nothing when their weekly wages were com- 
ing in, and the mother, who had years ago put her tiny 
hoardings into the savings-bank, had drawn them nearly 
all out to meet the expenses of Molly’s illness. 

“ You must not give them -money,” Mrs. Howell had 
said, with the emphasis of conviction, when talking of 
the matter with Dorothy. “ I do not believe in making 
paupers of decent, hard-working people. Do not even 
lend them any money. The bearing of a burden of debt 
would be very apt to handicap them, and if they never 
paid the debt that would be worse than every thing 
else.” 

“ Still they must live ! ” urged Dorothy. 

“I wonder,” mused Mrs. Howell, “whether Trudy 
would come here for a few weeks as seamstress ? It 
would be a stepping-stone, if I could persuade her to try 
the work/ to her finding permanent employment in a 
family.” 

“ She dreads the name of servant.” 

“ Yes, foolishly. Did not our Lord say to his disci- 
ples, ‘ I am among you as he that serveth ? ’ Yet I will 
not offend her prejudices ; what I want is to cultivate in 
her the germ of a truer dignity and independence. 
What is the trouble, Dorothy ? I see the doubt in your 
eyes.” 


126 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


“ Dear Mrs. Howell, I very much fear that your kind 
plan will fall to the ground simply for the reason that 
those poor things have never been taught to do the most 
ordinary kinds of work. Beyond their own specialty, 
which, of course, requires a certain knack, they are as 
ignorant and clumsy as they can be. Trudy would be 
of no use to you, dearest.” 

“ Well ? ” The older woman looked into the eyes of 
the younger, seeing there the dawn of a suggestion. 

“ Since * undertaking the Prestons,’ ” said Dorothy, 
wistfully, “ I have done a good deal of thinking. And 
I’ve been wondering whether the very best thing I could 
do for them wouldn’t be to teach them to sew, both by 
hand and on the machine. You know, I imagine, that I 
do all kinds of sewing respectably. Chiefly, I fancy, 
because I’m the girl who hasn’t a talent of any de- 
scription except the every-day * homey ’ ones, and they 
don’t count.” 

“ Blessings on you, Dorothy ! I look on your sewing 
and housewifery as quite equal to Nell’s and Linda’s rare 
bent in other and more showy directions. Proceed. 
Unfold your scheme.” 

“ It is this, dear lady. I’ll propose to Mrs. Preston — 
and I’m thankful to say that she will listen to me, since 
I’ve sat by Molly and helped nurse her — that if she’ll get 


HOLDING THE COPY CLOSE. 127 

her washing done by Tuesday night I will come in every 
Wednesday morning with my thimble and cotton and 
help her and the girls do the mending. They never 
do any mending, but they might as well learn how. It 
would be a good beginning.” 

“ Splendid ! ” 

“ You know, Mrs. Howell, that the poor waste more 
than the rich, owing to their want of system and of 
knowledge. I am struck with that when I see them 
throwing away good food which in our house is made 
over in some dainty way, or at least used in the soup- 
kettle, and when I find that new stockings are always 
bought the minute the old ones are worn a little, when 
they ought instead to be neatly darned.” 

“ The stockings are poor affairs to begin with, proba- 
bly.” 

“ Precisely, and there you touch another weak place 
in their unthrifty management. They spend so much on 
the outside garments, show is so much more important 
to them than comfort, that there’s nothing left for real 
must-haves — or what we would think to be such. Well, 
you will grow tired of my talking, Mrs. Howell. When 
I’ve taught the girls to sew, if I succeed, I’ll feel that 
I’ve been of use in the world, stupid as I am.” 

She went away with her bright face and quick step, 


128 


ONE OF THEMSEL VES. 


leaving her friend to think that of all adjectives “ stupid " 
. was the one which least accurately described Doroihy 
Gay. Indeed, the sweet face was gaining in expression 
and purpose, were that possible. 

“ You sep, miss,” said Mrs. Preston, a few days after- 
ward, “it doesn’t seem worth while to mend things 
when they are as far gone as this skirt ; I generally take 
such old duds to mop up the floor.” 

“ You just wait till I show you how nicely this can 
be repaired,” Dorothy answered, brightly. “Why, 
mother says that a lady can have no finer accomplish- 
ment than to know how to make the most of what she 
already has. We never throw any thing aside while it 
can be mended.” 

“ La ! ” said Mrs. Preston. 

“Are rich people so careful?” Trudy inquired, with 
an incredulous look which made Dorothy laugh. 

. “Trudy, dear, do you not know that there are de- 
grees all over? The richest person in this town may 
measure what he has in comparison with somebody who 
is a great deal better off and feel poor by contrast. And 
you, in this pleasant little home, with that darling old 
gray cat purring by the stove, those flowers in the win- 
dow, and your own mother to cook the dinner, cannot 
call yourself poor.” 


HOLDING THE COPY CLOSE. 129 

“We are better off,” said Molly, with a new timidity, 
glancing from the straw sewing which she had again 
attempted, “than Jesus was, for he had no place to lay 
his head. I often think of that. Why, where can mother 
be going in such a hurry ? ” 

There was a sound of commotion in the street below, 
shouts and screams were heard, then a tramping of feet 
in the lower hall, and the steady tread on the stairs of 
somebody who bore a burden. 

Mrs. Preston had disappeared. The three girls listened 
as from the floor beneath came the wail of a woman’s 
voice and the groan of a man as if in despair. 

“ It’s Teddy MacGinnis; he’s been hurt,” said Trudy, 
with a swift intuition. 

“ Teddy’s been killed,” said her mother, coming in 
white and agitated, “ The dear little fellow was playing 
not half an hour ago in the street before the door. He 
toddled off and somehow got under the wheels of the car 
and was crushed before the driver could stop his horses. 
Poor Mrs. MacGinnis !— and her man’s like one beside 
himself with grief. Likely he’ll take to drink now, poor 
fellow ! ” 

Dorothy went home with a heavy heart. The little 
three-year-old boy had been almost under her feet many 
a time ; she knew the white head and the sturdy little 


130 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


figure far better than she did some of the pretty, well- 
dressed babies on her own square. And now he was 
snatched in a moment from the father and mother to 
whom he was every thing— pride, life's hope, joy in pov- 
erty. Dorothy sent for Nell and Linda, and they held a 
conncil of three then and there. 

“ Girls, let us establish a Day Nursery in Avenue R,” 
said Linda, after they had talked around the subject and 
looked at it from every imaginable point of view. Some- 
how they felt as if they were to blame for Teddy’s 
death. 

“ We haven’t any money,” said Nell, with the tone of a 
person who sees an insuperable obstacle. Then, rally- 
ing, she added, “ But we’ll have to get some. Here’s 
a chance for the faith that removes mountains.” 

“ I’m not troubled on the finances,” was Linda’s obser- 
vation, “but I’m afraid the mothers won’t let their 
children come. They may look suspiciously on our 
scheme and prefer to take care of their children them- 
selves.” 

“ You the one to say that, Linda, when we always think 
you so full of hope? Let me tell you for your confusion 
that, wherever the Day Nursery has been fairly tried, 
the mothers, as soon as they have ascertained its helpful- 
ness, are very glad to send the little ones to a place 


HOLDING THE COPY CLOSE. 


131 

where they will have good care, instead of leaving them 
shut up in rooms where they may set themselves on fire, 
or else where they are in danger in the street. Girls, 
I’ve got a magnificent plan. I'll ask mamma to step 
here and we’ll consult her. I think the Prestons could 
carry on the Nursery for us if we once had it started.” 

“The Prestons! Why not?” echoed Nell, after a 
moment’s thought. “ They are so improved.” 

And Mrs. Gay, who entered into the spirit of the thing, 
and was full of excellent suggestions, also said, “ Why 
not ? ” 



* 


132 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


CHAPTER V. 

The Judge’s Idea. 

T HAT Molly Preston was in love had been known 
to Mrs. Howell for some time, but she was per- 
suaded that it was a mere girlish fancy, not the love 
which is the master-passion of a life ; therefore she wel- 
comed every thing which could occupy Molly and give 
her a wider outlook. Many things should come into 
a girl’s life before she puts her hand into that of an- 
other and begins with him the making of a new home. 
Above all, there should be a sense of responsibility to 
God and the full acceptance of duty which is to last for 
a whole life-time. 

Molly had lately looked upon her life with new realiza- 
tion that she owed something to those about her and 
every thing to her Saviour. The almost daily intercourse 
with Dorothy and her friends, one or another of whom 
found frequent errands to the Prestons’ flat, the books 
she had been reading, the greater refinement which 
insensibly but surely had influenced personal habits and 
desires — these all helped to make her more exacting in 
her choice of a husband. To her teacher’s great delight 


THE JUDGE'S IDEA. 


133 


she found Molly Pr.eston busy just now with her own 
character-building, and willing to leave other events to 
the future and Providence. 

So when the Day Nursery was proposed the girls 
found in the Prestons the very assistants they needed. 
A small house was rented, Judge Gay guaranteeing to 
make up deficiencies for the first year provided the girls 
did their best to make accounts meet. 

Here Mrs. Preston was installed as matron, with a 
general oversight of the household economy. Trudy and 
Molly were established as her assistants. In one room 

a half dozen cribs and cradles were placed ; these, with 

✓ 

their mattresses and spreads and soft blankets, costing 
nothing in money, for the girls begged for them from 
the nurseries of friends whose babies had been graduated 
to the school-room. All sorts of toys were asked for 
and obtained ; also, by the same method, scrap picture- 
books and boxes of building-blocks for older children 
were procured. Crackers, bread, milk, vegetables, and 
meat, coal and wood were matters of outlay ; and to 
begin a fund for these the three, Linda, Nell, and 
Dorothy, gave an entertainment in Cora Meredith’s 
parlor. 

The “ In His Name Nursery ” speedily gathered a 
score of babies from two months to two years old into its 


134 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


daily and friendly shelter, and before it had been in 
operation a year its limit of children under six was 
reached. Mrs. Preston proved herself an able manager, 
keeping faithful tally of the money brought in by the 
mothers, who paid from two to five cents a day for the 
care which was bestowed on their children. To have 
kept the little ones without charge while their mothers 
were at work would have been to offer them a charity, 
and Dorothy, true to Mrs. Howell’s teaching, would not 
do that. 

“ It is a business arrangement,” she explained. “ We 
who have time, and who love little children, open this 
house and provide a pleasant home, good food, and 
teaching for. those who are old enough, so that you 
mothers may go to your work with easy minds. You 
will feel happy if you trust the dear little things to us, 
and we, on our part, will promise not to betray your 
trust.” 

From the sudden death of little Teddy sprang the 
flower of a noble and beautiful work for Christ. 

But Dorothy Gay was not satisfied. One never is 
with first steps. The girl who had no talent to speak 
of found out that she had one gift, at least, equal in 
value to any talent — she always had time to think of 
other people and provide for their comfort. In these 


THE JUDGE'S IDEA. 135 

busy days the woman who has “ time ” is very much 
prized. 

Her father gave her the prompting to her next bit of 
work. She was pouring his coffee one morning, her 
mother not having yet come down to breakfast. The 
judge was very proud of his capable daughter Dorothy, 
so modest in her own conception of her work but so 
thorough and straightforward in carrying on whatever 
she undertook. He boasted that his girl had a thor- 
oughly masculine good sense. He was mistaken. It 
was feminine, which is as good as the other. 

“ I’ve another campaign for you, pet,” he said, drop- 
ping a third lump into the amber beverage — the judge 
liked his coffee syrupy sweet. 

“And what is it, papa, dear ? ” said Dorothy, looking 
brightly up. “ I am at your orders.” 

“ I want you and your girls — all of them, mind — to 
come to our prayer-meeting to-night, and give us a lift 
with the music. The singing, Dorothy, is something to 
make angels shudder, and it nearly sets me frantic. I 
am not an angel, as you know.” 

“ I’m not sure, papa. It’s my firm belief that you 
keep a pair of invisible wings tucked away under your 
coat-sleeves. But, papa, are you not talking of the 

young men’s meeting — the meeting which grew out of 
9 


136 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


the boys’ club? You don’t want girls there, surely. It 
would be a new departure!” 

“ My love, it is just there that I do want girls. The 
error has been in leaving them out. If I saw any good 
reason for supposing that the boys would do better alone 
I would not ask your help. But we find it difficult to 
keep the hold we desire on the fellows, surrounded as 
they are by temptations, and we begin to feel that the 
Lord knew what he was about when he set the children 
of men into families — brothers and sisters together. At 
all events, my blessing, I want you and your woman’s 
wit at the Olivet Mission, and I think Mrs. Howell’s 
whole class and your special Ten will not be the very 
least in the way. Can you rally your class ? ” 

When Dorothy, escorted by her father, and followed 
by Linda and Nell, made their appearance in the hall 
where for some months boys’ and young men’s meetings 
had been going on there was a quickly-suppressed stir, 
possibly a slight feeling of protest. But presently in 
dropped Molly and Trudy; then came Cora Meredith 
and another bevy, and before long the meeting was 
under full tide. The singing was greatly improved by 
the sweet sopranos and altos which lent it volume 
and gave it impulse; and when Judge Gay, at a stage 
in the proceedings, called for texts, the girls proved 


THE JUDGE'S IDEA. 137 

their familiarity with the word by reciting bravely and 
freely. 

“The best meeting we’ve had this year,” was the 
verdict, and in the social half hour that followed girls 
and boys found plenty to say to one another. The silver 
crosses were every-where, and they seemed to have 
magic. 

“You see,” Judge Gay commented, as he took Doro- 
thy home, “ these poor fellows have no home-life here 
in town. They either board, which means a bed in a 
cold hall chamber and a seat at a not over clean table, 
very different from the country farm-house fare which 
some of them have known, or else they live in tenements 
in a crowded, uncomfortable way, where there is no 
privacy and very little chance for any enjoyment. They- 
go to the street for company, and, if it happens to be 
cold, there on the corner is the saloon, with its warm 
fires, its bright lights, its air of good fellowship, which 
in the beginning is more of a temptation than the drink. 
I’ve been over the whole ground in my mind, and I see 
how easy the way is made for a homeless fellow to go 
down. 

“ ‘ Broad is the road that leads to death, 

And thousands walk together there ! ’ 

“ Now, if you girls and your mothers could open a 


138 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


place in opposition to the saloon for just a few of these 
young men you’d be doing a noble thing, Dorothy, my 
dear.” 

Mrs. Gay was to be counted on in any thing which 
enlisted her husband and child ; yet even she was a little 
staggered when these two, having put their heads — the 
gold-brown and silver gray — together, came to her. with 
a rather alarming proposition. 

“ You do not surely mean to have a Holly-tree Inn 
here in our own house ! ” she exclaimed in great surprise. 
“ Why, think of the wear and tear on the carpets, of the 
publicity, of the doubtful characters who might come 
in ! ” 

“ There’s a good deal to be said against it, mother,” 
admitted the judge, who was always fair, and could see 
both sides of a question. 

“ But, mamma,” said our Dorothy, of whom it must 
be confessed that the side of the question which made 
the strongest appeal to her sympathy was the one she 
generally saw most plainly, “ what are carpets in com- 
parison with men’s lives ? Besides, we have that whole 
basement floor, which could be fitted up with linoleum, 
have pictures and maps on the w r alls, tables and chairs 
brought in and arranged so that it W'ould make a charm- 
ing club-room. Give us girls carte blanche , mother. 




THE JUDGE'S IDEA . 139 

matronize the proceedings, and please let us try what 
we can do. Let us keep the cobwebs out of the base- 
ment.” 

The conclusion was that Dorothy had her way, her 
father declaring that it was a very good way, and that 
his little girl possessed a genius for administration. Cer- 
tainly, as she kept her hands on the wheels, now of this 
movement, now of that, Dorothy’s quiet personality was 
exerting its influence with much power. For, girls, after 
all, it is not what we do, nor what we say, so much as 
what we are which impresses for good or ill those whom 
we daily meet. 

“Who is that rather out-at-the-elbows young man 
who was so attracted to those pictures of the cathedrals 
the time we had a stereopticon exhibition ? ” inquired 
Linda, soon after the evenings were in progress. “ He 
has a fine face, only so lacking in cultivation. It is a 
starved face every way.” 

“ Why, Linda, that’s the youth who has been courting 
Molly Preston,” explained Dorothy. “We do not think 
him her equal, and have been hoping that they would 
drift apart ; but he follows her up, and she is the magnet 
which has brought him here.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Linda, “ I think it’s a serious thing 
to try to keep apart two people who love each other. 



140 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


My idea would be to raise him to her level. I’ll do all I 
can to help him on. Do you know, Dorothy, what that 
young man’s business is, and whether he has steady 
work to do ? This may be his salvation.” 

“ We can ascertain all about him. Papa wants the 
young fellows who come here to be kept under his own 
eye, in such matters as that, and when he sees a deserv- 
ing one he means to give him a lift — indirectly, of course. 
We were afraid Rolf Heber drank, but they say he does 
not now.” 

“ I would say if your father is interested that he will 
give him a true helping hand. I heard a woman say the 
other day that there was nothing in life so strong and so 
blessed as the grace of the down-reaching hand ; the 
one a little higher up the mountain-side reaching down 
and thus assisting the one who was climbing. It was 
ever so much better than the boost from beneath. And, 
when you consider, so it is.” 

“ True, Linda; but I draw the line at match-making 
myself. Have you been into the Nursery this week ? ” 

“Yes. There are few weeks I am not there.” 

“ And have you seen that Molly has picked up kinder- 
garten methods, and is teaching the children in some of 
those pretty ways which that system has brought into 
vogue ? That girl is a genius, Linda. By the way. she 


THE JUDGE'S IDEA . 


141 

and Trudy are coming here to supper, and Nell will be 
in, with Cora and Mrs. Howell. Won’t you come with 
us ? ” 

So at last Dorothy had crossed the Rubicon, and the 
two whom she had done so much to elevate were to be 
guests in her own dainty little nest, at her mother’s 
beautiful table, treated as if they belonged to her own 
especial set. 

Was this needful? Perhaps not; but Dorothy had 
reached the place where — to satisfy, not her conscience, 
but her heart — she could do no less. 





142 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


CHAPTER VI. 

> • a « ’* 

The One-Talent Ten. 

• 

I T was on a warm spring day that the plant-show, 
Mrs. Gay’s pet enterprise, invited its guests. To 
set the flowers out in their fullest beauty Mrs. Gay 
had cleared her drawing-room of sofas, chairs, easels, 
tables, and knick-knacks, while the windows, the man- 
tels, and the arrangements of shelves set and hung for 
the purpose gave opportunity for the display of the 
finest flowers. Not Mrs. Preston only, but a dozen 
other women of varying circumstances brought their 
pots, baskets, and bouquets, arid after every thing was 
in order, and the guests grouped on the camp-seats 
which had been provided, Linda sang and played as even 
she seldom did. Then, hand in hand, a little procession 
from the Nursery walked in two by two, and under 
Molly’s guidance went through some of the pretty kind- 
ergarten movements, to the delight of those who saw 
them — notably of their own mothers. Refreshments 
were served, and there was a re-distribution of the 
flowers ; some going to on< house, some to another, many 
to the hospitals, some to the blind, who, though they 


THE ONE-TALENT TEN 


143 


do not see the exquisite coloring and texture, love the 
perfume of the blossoms and like to feel the satin- 
smooth petals. 

The Prestons had given up their flat and moved into 
the house where the Nursery was located, it having been 
found necessary that somebody should live there all the 
time. Molly was soon to be married, and Rolf w T ould 
be the man in the house — a great convenience, said Mrs. 
Preston, practically; thinking of the many times when 
a man’s strength comes in as a pleasant help in house- 
hold life. Rolf’s handiness with tools and his engage- 
ment with a carpenter made it probable that he would 
be able to support Molly, and Dorothy, now that Rolf 
had signed a Christian Endeavor pledge, and Molly had 
learned how to cook and to sew, felt very hopeful that 
the two would establish themselves in a happy home 
life. No need to complain of Trudy or Molly for care- 
lessness about personal neatness in these days. The 
scent-bottles had gone into the ash-barrel, and in their 
places white castile soap and clean towels reigned 
supreme. The date of this revolution, if the girls had 
chosen to tell it, was the date of the day when Dorothy 
wrote in her diary : 

“ I have had the Prestons to tea. They seemed to 
enjoy it very much, and betrayed no unfamiliarity with 


144 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


table furniture and etiquette. I’m glad I asked them 
here, girl to girl ; as we all sat in my room after supper 
gossiping — girl fashion — I found out that we had a dozen 
things in common of which I had never dreamed. And 
then there is the one great bond, for both Molly and 
Trudy have given their hearts to Jesus. They are so full 
of love to him, and so anxious to serve, and already they 
have begun to form each her own Ten among the 
hat-pressers and straw-sewers ; so there will be a large 
company in Avenue R and the streets near by working 
together In His Name. O, I am so sorry and so 
ashamed of having been such a Pharisee in days not 
long ago. I used to sing : 

‘ Is there a lamb in all thy flock 
I would disdain to feed; 

Is there a foe before whose face 
I’d fear thy cause to plead ? ’ 

And I thought I meant it. But I hadn’t learned the 
alphabet then of such sweet and blessed meaning,” 

As I said, the girls threw their scent-bottles away' 
and took in earnest to soap and water after they had 
spent those charmed hours in Dorothy’s domain. 

“ If we can’t have ivory and silver on our combs and 
brushes, and all sorts of dainty pretty things on our 
bureaus, we can have whole and clean things and be 


145 


THE ONE-TALENT TEN. 

done with shams,” said Trudy, positively. “ I never in 
my life shall be satisfied with imitations after this. What 
I have and do shall be Simon Pure ; true through and 
through.” 

“ Amen to that,” was Molly’s reply. 

Linda Creamer, Nell King, and Dorothy Gay lingered 
again one evening in Cora Meredith’s parlors as Cora 
settled the room after a meeting of their Ten. Nell had 
just met with a great success. A picture of hers had 
been admitted to the water-color exhibition and at once 
purchased at a high price by a connoisseur in art. Nell 
had been walking on air ever since. She saw looming 
before her — a possibility at last' — something for which 
she had only half-dared to hope : a year’s residence in 
Munich, to study the art which more than any thing 
else on earth filled the measure of her aspirations. 

Linda was also crowned with an invisible wreath of 
joy. Her diligent piano practice, day in and day out six 
hours a day, had brought her to a stage of development 
where her teachers insisted that Stuttgart or Berlin must 
aid her further progress. As her parents were soon 
going abroad Linda’s eyes were penetrating the future, 
and she was fancying the grand chances for study which 
were to be her own on the other side of the broad Atlan- 
tic. More than ever her singing had grown to be to her 


146 


ONE OF THEMSELVES. 


like daily bread, and her music was a thread leading her 
heavenward. 

Cora, too, had her reasons for gladness. To her, as 
to many a novice knocking at the gates of literature, had 
come many a disappointment in the shape of manu- 
scripts “declined with thanks.” Too proud to speak of 
such defeats she had often dropped hot tears upon the 
innocent printed notice, so courteous, yet so cold, with 
its “ unavailable ” blotting her hopes out of existence. 
But not for nothing had Cora the grit of her New 
England forefathers, and she had learned by heart and 
put into practice the homely couplet, 

“If at first you don’t succeed, 

Try, try again.” 

Now her pluck and patience and perseverance, those 
excellent p’s had brought their reward. Cora Meredith’s 
name was published among the contributors to a popu- 
lar periodical ; a little book of hers was in its third 
edition, and, better still, editors were beginning to 'ask 
her for contributions. Happy girl ! Only those who 
have passed through her novitiate can sympathize in her 
satisfaction. 

It had been a delightful meeting of the Ten, and 
congratulations had poured on the three whose cups 
were so full of thankful joy. Now, when the rest had 


THE ONE-TALENT TEN. 


147 


gone, Dorothy had her personal word of praise for each. 
She honestly thought that no lot in life could be so 
blessed as that of those on whom the Master had be- 
stowed some wonderful gift, some divine endowment 
which could be put at interest for him. 

But she was not prepared to have Linda exclaim, 

“If you want to know who has the ten talents, I de- 
clare I believe it to be Dorothy. She is of so much use. 
She has only to start an enterprise and it goes forward. 
She can conquer those who are reluctant and win the 
most hateful to sweetness." 

“ Yes," said Cora, “ Dorothy’s doing goes farther than 
my writing, and that I shall always affirm. In fact, I 
get half my stories and ever so many of my poems out 
of her dear life." 

“And,” Nell added, “ I think it’s a higher work to im- 
press one’s life on other lives than to make the prettiest 
pictures and sell them for the highest prices. Dorothy, 
we mean all we say — and more ; more.” 

A very bright smile illumined Dorothy’s face. She 
looked singularly happy and at peace. 

“ You are all very good. But, dears, I do not need 
your assurances now, for I have left behind me all the 
worry and dissatisfaction, all the fretting because my 
work must lie in lowly places and among the obscure. 


148 


ONE OF THEMSELVES . 


I see that my business is to shine in the corner where 
the ’dear Lord has placed me, keeping my own corner 
bright and doing only what Jesus tells Dorothy Gay to do. 
I have learned a great deal since I bemoaned myself 
that I had nothing more splendid before me than ‘ under- 
taking the Prestons.’ ” 

Dear girls, if this little true story is to do good to 
any of you, will you take to heart its simple lessons ? 
Do not stand afar off from the poor in your charitable 
work. Be of themselves if you would carry Christ into 
their homes. Do not be scornful of small every-day 
talents, but sew, keep house, entertain friends, and at- 
tend to whatever else is given you, “ In His Name.” 
For he sees and he cares; and he requires of each of us 
to do our very best in the sphere where he has ordained 
our service. 

After all, the sweetest of compliments was paid to 
Dorothy, not by the Prestons, who looked upon her as 
their patron saint and guardian angel combined, not by 
Mrs. Howell, to whom she was a great comfort as well 
as a tried ally, not by any of her Ten, with whom she 
was a favorite, but by her own father. 

Judge Gay was very weary. He had been trying a 
difficult case, and after listening to hours of argument by 


THE ONE-TALENT TEN. 


149 


learned lawyers and giving decisions on mooted points 
he came home. His wife was sitting in her easy-chair 
beside a cheerful fire. She rose to give him a welcoming 
kiss. Dorothy came to help him off with his coat and 
held the dressing-gown for him to put on, bringing him 
next a cup of tea, and hovering about with tender atten- 
tions. As she left the room the parents’ eyes met, and 
the father, speaking softly, said, 

4 ‘ I thank God for the best daughter a man ever had.” 

And that is all I have to tell you about Dorothy Gay. 
She is a real girl, her work is real, her friends adore her> 
and just what she is doing you may do if you choose. 


THE END. 


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